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THE    QUALITIES    OF    MEN.     i6mo,  $t.oo  fiei. 

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THE  QUALITIES  OF  MEN 


THE  QUALITIES 

OF  MEN 

AN  ESSAY  IN  APPRECIATION 

BY 

JOSEPH  JASTROW 
'Z.OBSI 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

(SEbe  RitoetjSitic  "pxtii  Cambritiflc 

1910 


COPYRIGHT,   1910,  BY  JOSEPH  JASTROW 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October  iqiq 


T3\ 


IN  RECOGNITION  OF  ITS  SERVICES 

IN  FOSTERING 

THE  HIGHER  APPRECIATION  OF 

THE  QUALITIES  OF  MEN 

IN  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITIES 


PREFACE 

This  essay  must  itself  carry  its  mes- 
sage and  justify  its  mission.  An  intro- 
ductory word  cannot  illuminate  its  pur- 
pose ;  though  it  may  facilitate  the  ap- 
proach, as  a  sign-board  points  the  way 
and  avoids  the  disappointment  of  an  un- 
expected destination. 

A  study  of  the  qualities  of  men  in 
which  a  psychological  interest  in  human- 
ity is  prominent,  may  properly  be  ex- 
pected to  undertake  an  analysis  of  the 
fundamental  factors  in  human  nature; 
their  transformation  in  human  nurture  ; 
and  their  values  in  growth,  education, 
and  vocation.  This  is  indeed  the  basal 
problem^  in  the  psychology  of  human 
traits.  I  have  not  slighted  it,  and  am  en- 
gaged lin  a  modest  attempt  to  interpret 
what  modern  psychology  has  to  say  on 


viii  PREFACE 

the  subject.  To  that  interpretation  I  pro- 
pose to  give  the  title  "  Character  and 
Temperament,"  a  combination  of  terms, 
that  by  the  consensus  of  recent  writers 
has  again  become  current  with  a  richer 
and  more  scientific  meaning. 

In  the  preparation  for  that  work,  I 
found  the  more  general  bearings  of  the 
problems  of  human  quality  constantly 
growing  in  interest  and  insistently  de- 
manding formulation.  I  found,  too,  that 
their  treatment  made  natural  a  more 
general  form  of  statement  and  a  wider 
appeal ;  while  yet  it  could  be  reconciled 
to  a  seeming  neglect  of  the  psycholog- 
ical analysis  at  closer  range.  The  present 
essay  thus  represents  an  expansion  of 
the  conclusions  of  a  study,  the  prelimi- 
naries of  which  are  not  overlooked  but 
merged  in  the  composite  contours  of  a 
generalizing  interest. 

The  material  has  passed  through  the 
stages  of  a  paper  before  a  Literary  Club, 
of  a  Commencement  address,  and  the 


PREFACE  ix 

concluding-  one  of  a  course  of  eight  lec- 
tures on  "Character and  Temperament," 
delivered  at  Columbia  University  in 
March  and  April  1910. 

University  of  Wisconsin,  Madison, 
September  y  19 10. 


CONTENTS 

I.  THE  SENSIBILITIES 

The  aesthetic  range  —  The  innateness 
of  its  quality — Social  complications 
of  its  expression  —  Pleasure  and  dis- 
pleasure —  The  aesthetic  ingredient  in 
social  intercourse  ;  in  morals  —  Man- 
ner as  real  and  assumed       ....        i 

II.  THE  IDEALS   OF   APPRECI- 

ATION 

Education  and  the  selection  of  quality 

—  The  democratic  fallacy  —  The 
elective  system  —  The  newer  and  the 
older  appreciation  of  quality     .     .     .     2i 

in.   THE     SUPPORT     OF     THE 
SENSIBILITIES 

Sensibility  and  practice :  architecture 

—  The  limitations  of  sensibility  — 
Sensibility  as  the  support  of  intelli- 
gence —  Stupidity  and  dullness  — 
Sensibility,  energy,  and  skill     ...     26 


xii  CONTENTS 

IV.  THE  ANALYSIS  OF   QUAL- 

ITY 

The  study  of  character  j  the  blending 
of  temperament  —  Practical  psychol- 
ogy of  observation  —  Theory  and 
practice  —  The  psychological  artist   .     41 

V.  QUALITY     AND     CIRCUM- 

STANCE 

The  esteem  of  quality  in  Utopia  — 
The  leaders  and  the  led  —  Athenian 
and  Boeotian  —  Bromide  and  Sulphite ; 
their  contrasted  qualities  —  Gentleman 
and  vulgarian  —  The  Utopia  of  Mr. 
Wells  :  the  Poietic,  Kinetic,  Dull,  and 
Base  — The  qualities  of  the  Poietic     .     49 

VI.  THE  COMPATIBILITIES  OF 

QUALITY 

The  incompatibilities  —  Square  pegs 
and  round  holes  —  The  frailties  of 
genius  —  The  hazard  of  high  quality 
—  The  social  esteem  of  other  civiliza- 
tions—  The  pioneer  and  complacent 
prosperity  —  The  false  appraisal  of 
quality 65 


CONTENTS  xiii 

VII.  THE  POIETIC  CALLINGS 
The  appreciation  of  poietic  talent ;  in 
college  life  —  The  weakness  of  aca- 
demic influences 79 

VIII.  THE     SOCIAL     ENCOUR- 
AGEMENT OF  QUALITY 

The  service  of  ideals — The  prag- 
matic position  — The  intellectual  and 
social  efficiency  of  ideals  —  Conven- 
tion and  innovation  —  Conservative 
and  liberal  —  The  service  and  disser- 
vice of  convention  —  The  problems 
of  compromise  —  The  political  tem- 
per :  its  perils  — The  advancement  of 
quality  by  selection 87 

IX.  THE     UPPER    RANGES    OF 

QUALITY 

The  social  transformation  —  Funda- 
mental and  derivative  traits — Com- 
plex conditions  and  the  emphasis  of 
the  upper  ranges ;  of  the  derivative 
issues  of  quality  —  The  contrasts  of 
culture  —  The  conspicuousness  of 
slighter  contrasts 103 


xiv  CONTENTS 

X.  INTERACTION    OF    QUAL- 

ITY AND  ENVIRONMENT 
Environment  and  quality  as  in  turn 
cause  and  effect  —  Illustration  in 
American  push  ;  in  the  psychology  of 
advertising;  in  the  economics  of  sup- 
ply and  demand;  in  occupation  and 
milieu  —  Adjustment  in  terms  of  na- 
tional ideals —  Responsiveness  of  femi- 
nine quality  to  masculine  ideals  — 
The  import  of  leadership      .     .     .     .115 

XI.  QUALITY  AND  CAREERS 
Human  nature  :  basal  quality  and  su- 
perficial expression  —  Success  and  its 
significance  —  The  complexity  of  hu- 
man quality ;  its  misleading  simplifi- 
cation —  Short-sighted  practicality  — 
Communites  to  be  judged  by  their 
practical  esteem  of  quality — Lower 
and  higher  appreciation 131 

XII.  A  SUMMARY 

The  sensibilities  as  commanding;  as 
educative;  as  differentiating  —  Sensi- 
bility and  morals;  and  intelligence  — 


CONTENTS  XV 

The  blends  of  quality  —  Quality  and 
circumstance ;    in    Utopia ;    on    earth 

—  The  direction  of  ideals — The  up- 
per ranges  of  quality  —  The  interplay 
of  social  forces  —  Individual  quality 
and  the  restraint  of  convention  —  A 
plea  for  the  poietic  —  The  judgment 

of  communities 142 

XIII.  THE  REALM  OF  PRACTICE 

The  privileges  of  leadership  —  The 
shortcomings  of  democracy:  inhospit- 
able to    dissent;  impatient  of  reform 

—  The  emphasis  of  individuality  — 
"Mute,  inglorious  Miltons" — The 
distortions  of  preferment:  first-rate 
and  second-rate  qualities  and  men  — 
The  uncongenial  intellectual  climate : 
in  Universities  —  The  remedies  — 
Each  calling  demands  its  own  condi- 
tions —  The  injustice  and  unwisdom 
of  unsuitable  standards  —  Business 
and  the  higher  quality  —  The  political 
and  the  philosophical  temper  —  The 
assurance  of  optimism  in  the  plasticity 

of  human  nature — Conclusion      .      .    153 


THE   QUALITIES 

OF  MEN 

In  these  enterprising  days  of  journal- 
istic ingenuity,  problems  may  enter  un- 
invited with  the  postman's  visitations, 
and  be  entertained  unawares.  Though 
they  fail  in  their  inquisitive  mission,  they 
set  up  an  irritation  that  seeks  satisfaction 
in  a  formula.  The  momentary  intruder 
presented  the  double  mask  of  comedy  or 
tragedy:  "Why  are  you  an  optimist; 
^  and  if  not,  why  not?"  it  asked.  On  re- 
flection, so  much  of  optimism  as  seemed 
consistent  in  a  vale  of  tears  with  an  un- 
certain climate  found  its  warrant  in  the 
manifest  and  profound  error  of  that  bene- 
ficent historical  document  which  enlight- 
ened the  world  by  informing  it  that  all 
men  are  born  free  and  equal.  If  that  pro- 
nunciamento  were  in  any  real  application 


s. 
i 

V 

t 

CI 


2      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

true,  the  chief  prop  to  a  sane  optimism 
would  become  as  a  broken  reed.  If  all 
humanity  were  of  the  quality  of  its  aver- 
age, we  should  be  vacant  of  our  glori- 
ous gains,  and  as  successive  heirs  of  all 
the  ages  have  little  to  inherit.  The  ine- 
qualities of  men  furnish  the  material  for 
nature  and  civilization  alike  and  jointly 
to  work  upon.  Clay  makes  the  earthen 
pot  and  the  finer  vessel ;  but  the  texture 
of  the  raw  material  and  the  potter's 
art  transform  the  finished  product. 


The  purpose  of  my  ambitious  venture 
is  to  survey  the  varieties  of  human  qual- 
ity, and  to  do  this  dominantly  in  a  prac- 
tical vein  ;  to  gauge  the  measure  and  note 
the  manner  of  distinctive  inequalities,  to 
distinguish  and  portray  their  several  in- 
fluences in  the  careers  of  men  ;  then  more 
critically,  to  appraise  their  worth,  to  ob- 
serve the  success  which  attends   them, 


THE  SENSIBILITIES  3 

and,  if  fortune  favor,  to  reach  some  in- 
sight into  the  play  of  personal  forces  that 
shape  our  fate  individually,  collectively, 
nationally.  Like  much  that  is  interesting 
in  life,  the  situation  finds  its  most  direct 
illumination  under  the  fitful  torch  which 
the  psychologist  hesitantly  flourishes.  In 
his  vocabulary  —  which  in  this  context 
may  appear  in  simplified  spelling — a 
term  of  largest  meaning  is  appreciation. 
When  encountered  in  his  customary  ped- 
agogical mood,  the  psychologist  will  ex- 
plain that  the  source  and  the  enduring 
supply  of  the  mental  nourishment  are  to 
be  sought  in  the  environment,  in  a  world 
so  puzzlingly  full  of  a  number  of  things 
that  we  are  kept  endlessly  busy  discov- 
ering them,  and  variously  happy  and 
unhappy  in  bending  them  to  our  uses. 
One  of  the  compensations  of  crying  for 
the  moon  is  the  discovery  of  the  moon 
itself.  The  most  ardent  and  strenuous 
discoverer  of  all  times  and  climes  is  the 
dauntless  amateur  adventurer  who  pene- 


4       THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

trates  unattended  and  on  all  fours  to  the 
farthest  corner  of  the  nursery.  Never 
again  as  in  these  infantile  explorations 
will  the  zest  of  entering  into  the  king- 
dom of  knowledge  and  the  joy  of  posses- 
sion be  so  keen  and  so  complete,  so 
untroubled  by  the  burden  of  ignorance 
that  is  far  from  blissful.  The  enjoyment 
of  sense  open  to  any  or  at  least  to  many 
an  appeal,  the  capacity  to  observe,  the 
responsiveness  to  the  passing  show,  the 
appetite  for  variety,  the  ingenuity  to  sup- 
ply it,  —  in  general,  the  scope  and  vigor 
of  the  receptive  attitude  by  virtue  of 
which  we  reach  the  kingdom  of  our 
earthly  inheritance,  mark  a  distinctive 
type,  a  significant  variety  of  human  trait. 
And  early  and  late,  our  discoveries  are 
determined  by  such  alertness  of  sense, 
such  sustaining  curiosity,  such  organized 
interests  as  we  bring  to  our  occupations. 
Thus  is  spun  the  mental  web,  the  spin- 
ner taking  up  his  lodging  at  the  centre 
of  the  system,  and  by  his  sensitiveness 


THE  ESTHETIC   RANGE       5 

to  the  currents  of  the  atmosphere  finding 
what  he  may  devour.  So  each  becomes 
the  sum  of  his  sensibilities,  and  his  world 
bounded  by  the  range  of  his  apprecia- 
tions. 

Herein  lies  a  fair  starting  point  for 
the  differentiation  of  human  quality. 
Where  the  sensory  dependence  is  strong- 
est, the  demarcation  is  clear.  The  ear  for 
music  is  early  revealed ;  without  native 
endowment,  incentive  and  enjoyment 
lag ;  and  if  persisted  in,  however  assidu- 
ously, the  effort  to  develop  a  tonal  facil- 
ity becomes  an  unwarranted  intrusion 
upon  an  unwilling  audience.  The  range 
of  endowment  is  wide:  between  those  to 
whom  no  other  language  is  so  eloquent, 
no  other  voice  so  commanding,  and  their 
antipodes,  for  whom  music  is  but  elabo- 
rate noise,  there  is  to  be  found  a  consid- 
erable series  of  niches,  in  one  or  another 
of  which  each  of  us  finds  a  modest  place. 
The  gift  of  the  muses  is  typically  the 
musical  gift  —  the  offering  of  an  attend- 


6      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

ant  fairy  in  the  older  setting,  a  dower  of 
heredity  in  the  newer,  yet  each  with  more 
concealment  than  revelation  of  their  de- 
vious ways.  Such  marked  sensory  dis- 
positions as  those  of  painter  and  musician 
lead  to  precocity  of  achievement;  yet 
cultivation  and  the  infinite  capacity  for 
taking  pains  do  not  find  their  occupa- 
tions gone.  But  the  bending  of  the  twig, 
as  the  inclination  of  the  tree,  stands  as  a 
variation  of  nature,  though  matured  by 
the  vicissitudes  of  climate  and  our  horti- 
cultural ideals. 

So  naturally  do  we  look  upon  musical 
virtue,  like  beauty  of  person,  as  a  dow- 
er of  birth,  that  we  withdraw  it  from  the 
ethical  phases  of  responsibility.  We  hold 
it  not  against  a  man  that  he  is  utterly 
unmusical,  though  we  condole  with  him 
in  his  misfortune ;  we  confess  as  freely 
to  such  a  lack  in  our  composite  nature  as 
to  an  illegible  handwriting.  In  the  field 
of  the  decorative  arts,  a  like  frankness  of 
confession   is  a  privilege  equally  avail- 


THE  ESTHETIC    RANGE        7 

able,  but  commonly  declined.  Our  friends 
do  not  unconcernedly  disclose  —  even 
though  their  domestic  surroundings  do 
—  an  immunity  to  the  aesthetics  of  form 
and  color,  a  defect  presumably  yet  more 
common  than  tone-deafness.  The  unob- 
served blind-spot  in  the  retina  may  be 
proposed  as  the  symbol  of  aesthetic  in- 
sensibility, as  the  mote  in  a  neighbor's 
eye  is  of  moral  dimsightedness.  Yet  the 
reasons  are  many  and  sufficient  why  that 
estimable  citizen  Jones  does  not  care  to 
be  told,  what  by  the  narrow  ray  of  light 
that  enters  his  confessional  he  must  at 
times  dimly  discern :  that  he  is  decora- 
tively  purblind.  Imprimis  there  enters 
the  intrusion  of  pride :  one's  Lares  and 
Penates,  however  assembled,  become  a 
badge  of  possession,  an  index  of  social 
position,  a  token  of  success  and  station  ; 
if  they  are  properly  costly,  conform  to 
the  standards  of  the  tribe,  do  not  violate 
any  of  its  taboos,  they  bring  no  detrac- 
tion upon  the  qualities  of  their  owner. 


8      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

Of  his  offense  to  the  muses  he  is  igno- 
rant ;  or  if  perchance  vaguely  suspicious, 
he  finds  ready  solace  in  the  goodly  com- 
pany of  his  tribal  associates.  He  is  not 
tempted  to  emulate  the  unreserve  of  that 
equally  estimable  citizen  Smith,  who  long 
ago  discovered  and  announced  that  to 
him  music  was  a  blank ;  and  this  because 
the  pictures  on  the  Jonesian  walls,  the 
trappings  about  his  hearth  —  which  pre- 
sumably has  been  modernized  to  a  hole 
in  the  floor  or  a  cast-iron  monument 
—  along  with  explicit  comfort  bring  to 
him  some  confused  or  distorted  message. 
The  pictures,  though  with  little  art,  tell 
an  intelligible  story ;  and  the  conven- 
tional decoration  on  his  china  is  still  to 
him  a  recognizable  primrose.  Unlike  the 
enviable  Smith,  he  has  not  the  refuge  of 
silence ;  for  he  can  hardly  be  expected  to 
establish  himself  in  a  whitewashed  lean-to, 
which  alone  would  express  the  barren- 
ness of  his  decorative  sensibilities.  An 
outer  vestment  and  a  fitted  shelter  he 


THE  ESTHETIC   RANGE       9 

and  we  must  devise  to  hide  our  naked- 
ness, wherein  conventionally  to  display 
our  primitive  finery. 

And  though  this  fable  teaches  most  di- 
rectly that  the  qualities  of  our  nature  are 
subtly  and  complicatedly  interwoven,  it 
teaches  as  well  how  promptly  the  diaboli- 
cal spell  of  display  and  possession  is  cast 
upon  the  innocence  of  our  primeval  vir- 
tue ;  how  the  melodeon  in  the  farm-house 
or  the  grand  piano  in  the  suburbanite 
villa  is  installed  not  as  a  tribute  to  the 
muses,  but  as  a  libation  to  respectable 
success.  For  the  most  of  us,  neither  art- 
ists nor  musicians,  yet  not  devoid  of  the 
sensibilities  of  their  arts,  the  aesthetic  in- 
gredient in  the  ordinary  leaven  contri- 
butes something  essential  to  the  flavor 
of  the  daily  bread.  Yet  despite  the  com- 
mon element  in  our  farinaceous  diet,  the 
varieties  of  sensibility,  like  the  varieties  of 
breakfast-food,  are  many.  They  all  find 
support  in  a  sensory  basis,  but  in  fulness 
of  time   stand   free  of  their  supporting 


lo     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

scaffolding.  The  status  of  our  personal 
quality  in  respect  of  this  or  that  variety 
of  sensibility  is  probably  little  subject  to 
our  desires.  We  cannot  by  taking  thought, 
and  only  moderately  by  taking  lessons  in 
art,  add  many  a  cubit  to  the  height  of 
our  sesthetic  stature.  But  we  may  observe 
how  native  endowments  grow  under 
favor  of  nurture,  what  influences  of  our 
making  quicken  the  process,  and  how  in 
the  end  achievement  waits  upon,  as  it  re- 
flects and  embodies,  innate  quality. 

"The  eye,"  as  Goethe  psychologically 
observes,  "  sees  only  what  it  has  in  itself 
the  power  of  seeing";  and  the  increased 
power  of  vision  —  "  more  light "  were  his 
dying  words  —  is  what  he  and  we  strive 
to  attain.  The  illumination,  though  in 
part  a  matter  of  candle-power,  or  of  tele- 
scope and  microscope,  is  more  essentially 
an  inner  enlightenment,  a  clear-sighted- 
ness and  deep-sightedness,  an  expansion 
of  sensibilities.  Though  dominant  in  the 
sesthetic  arts  that  follow  closely  the  clues 


PLEASURE  AND   PAIN        ii 

of  sense,  sensibility  extends  its  subtle  but 
decisive  influence  over  all  art,  over  the 
realm  of  knowledge  pure  and  applied, 
over  social  intercourse,  practical  manage- 
ment, and  the  deftness  of  what  human 
hands  find  to  do.  Most  directly  it  ex- 
presses itself  in  pleasure  and  pain,  and 
more  unequivocally,  as  if  to  enforce  its 
sovereignty,  in  the  aspect  of  displeasure. 
Certainly  in  our  most  familiar  environ- 
ments, the  aesthetically  sensitive  shudder 
more  generally  than  they  thrill.  The  dis- 
cord grates  ;  the  garish  clash  of  color  in- 
cites an  instinctive  recoil ;  the  vulgar  riot 
of  crude  ornament  invites,  as  it  seems  to 
embody,  the  spirit  of  profanity.  And  when 
these  violations  transgress  the  milder 
prohibitions  of  the  civil,  rather  than  the 
sterner  ones  of  the  criminal  code,  they 
disseminate  a  malaise  only  more  easily 
endured,  because  the  sensitive  nature,  so 
frequently  shocked,  has  perforce  devel- 
oped an  auto-ansesthetic  for  its  wounds. 
Displeasure  or  dissatisfaction  is  the  price 


12      THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

ever  to  be  paid  for  the  privilege  of  better 
things.  The  sources  of  unhappiness  are 
themselves  the  keys  to  the  joys  of  living. 
Weltschmerz  finds  its  compensation  in 
Weltfreude.  And  equally  in  the  field  of 
knowledge,  the  fruit  of  the  tree  is  worth 
all  the  qualms  its  enjoyment  entails.  The 
nobler  bliss  of  knowledge  prevails  above 
the  bliss  that  lurks  in  ignorance.  The 
keener  satisfaction,  the  richer  content, 
the  fuller  meaning  —  these  make  the 
deeper  feeling  in  the  man  as  in  the  poet, 
in  so  far  as  he  is  born  thus  to  be  made. 
The  personal  qualities  of  the  artist  are 
but  the  unfoldments  of  his  sensibilities  ; 
and  the  higher  pleasures  and  the  deeper 
pains  furnish  the  standards  of  worth  that 
inspire  his  expression.  For  those  who 
cannot  create  but  can  enjoy,  the  measure 
of  their  appreciation,  as  for  the  creative 
artist  himself,  becomes  the  index  of  their 
cultivated  sensibilities. 

The  quality  of  sensibility  reflects  the 
class  of  its  employment.  Human  inter- 


SOCIAL   INTERCOURSE       13 

course,  notably  in  its  social  phases,  and 
alike  in  its  casual  and  its  more  enduring 
service,  discloses  its  various  and  versa- 
tile composition.  It  is  associated  tradi- 
tionally with  the  educative  contact  of 
city  life.  Civility  and  urbanity,  speaking 
Romanwise,  are  qualities  to  be  devel- 
oped where  most  they  are  needed,  —  in 
the  madding  crowds  of  men  ;  while  boor- 
ishness,  somewhat  harshly,  pertains  to 
the  peasant  tiller  of  the  soil.  Yet  class 
distinctions,  though  prone  to  become 
artificial  and  irrelevant,  are  founded  upon 
sensibilities  that  are  deep,  and  congeni- 
ality that  is  responsive.  Inevitably  qual- 
ity—  as  in  the  ante-bellum  use  of  the 
phrase  —  attaches  to  the  favored  of  birth 
and  circumstance  ;  and  "  nature's  noble- 
men "  are  not  as  plentiful  as  obituary  not- 
ices suggest.  However  circumstanced,  so- 
cial and  intellectual  intercourse  proceed 
upon  inherent  sensibilities.  The  frictional 
interchange  of  thought  brings  the  quiet 
glow  to  an  occasional  spark ;  wit  scintil- 


14     THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

lates ;  a  phrase,  a  turn,  flashes  a  new 
vista.  In  the  minor  give  and  take,  the 
amenities,  the  manner,  the  ease  and 
adaptability,  all  these  and  a  larger  kin- 
dred of  qualities  subtly  and  delicately 
yet  effectively  reflect  the  bearing  of  mind 
in  the  service  of  the  social  sensibilities. 
Much  of  it  is  conventional,  some  of  it  as- 
sumed ;  yet  the  best  and  deepest  of  it 
confirmatory  of,  if  not  contributory  to  the 
patent  of  one's  antecedents.  Breeding  is 
at  once  the  homely  and  the  distinguished 
name  for  the  quality  ;  and  aristocrat  and 
democrat  may  share  alike  in  the  dignity 
and  warrant  thereof,  in  so  far  as  they 
have  the  support  of  the  proper  sensibili- 
ties. How  far  this  consummation  is  ob- 
tainable by  effort  and  the  shaping  of  edu- 
cation is  a  vexed  issue.  The  conservative 
will  agree  with  Professor  James  that  the 
initiative  for  such  prerogative  must  be 
laid  in  early  life.  "  Hardly  ever  can  a 
youth  transferred  to  the  society  of  his 
betters  unlearn  the  nasality  and  other 


MORALS  15 

vices  of  speech  bred  in  him  by  the  asso- 
ciation of  his  growing  years.  Hardly  ever 
indeed,  however  much  money  there  be 
in  his  pocket,  can  he  ever  learn  to  dress 
like  a  gentleman-born.  The  merchants 
offer  their  wares  as  eagerly  to  him  as  to 
the  veriest  *  swell,'  but  he  simply  ca7inot 
buy  the  right  things.  An  invisible  law, 
as  strong  as  gravitation,  keeps  him  with- 
in his  orbit,  arrayed  this  year  as  he  was 
last;  and  how  his  better-bred  acquaint- 
ances contrive  to  get  the  things  they 
wear  will  be  for  him  a  mystery  till  his 
dying  day." 

Sensibility  equally  touches  and  refines 
the  field  of  morals.  The  tokens  of  personal 
consideration  given  and  received,  the 
lighter  appeals  to  and  recognition  of  the 
gentler  feelings,  the  things  emphasized 
and  overlooked  sans  dire,  —  these  reflect 
a  moral  coloring  in  one  light,  an  aes- 
thetic in  another.  Fastidiousness  protects 
from  vice  as  effectively  as  a  colder  ascetic 
conscience.  And  the  proximity  to  holiness 


i6      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

of  so  homely  a  virtue  as  cleanliness  is 
due  to  the  underlying  rectitude  of  the 
sensibilities.  The  daily  bath  is  no  more 
than  clean  linen  a  hygienic  necessity. 
But  to  be  uncomfortable  without  them 
indicates  a  proper  sensibility.  It  is  worth 
w^hile  to  appreciate  the  temperament  that 
can  lunch  upon  spotless  napery  and  a 
biscuit,  even  though  a  more  robust  appe- 
tite enables  one   to  eat   hungrily  amid 
unsavory  surroundings.   Yet   all  things 
in  moderation.  That  sensibilities  may  be 
over-refined,  that  the  disdain  that  ignores 
may  conceal  a  deeper  rottenness,  that  the 
effeminate  preclude  the  sterner  qualities, 
needs  no  emphasis  in  a  climate  in  which 
no  one  has  as  yet  died  of  a  rose  in  aro- 
matic pain.  What  more  needs  to  be  re- 
garded is  the  overstrain  of  sensibilities 
that  leads  to  sensationalism,  indicative  of 
a  spoiled  appetite  with  insufficient  ingre- 
dients of  solid  food.  But  the  corrective  is 
once  more  a  truer  quality  of  sensibility 
which  is  ever  ready  to  affiliate  with  the 


MANNER  17 

higher  phases  of  virtue  ;  for  the  virtues, 
though  subject  to  complex  sympathies 
and  antipathies,  have  an  underlying  af- 
finity for  their  kind. 

Admittedly,  manner  may  be  skin-deep 
or  even  cosmetically  achieved  ;  and  con- 
vention is  the  most  disguising  of  all  hu- 
man expedients.  Yet  however  democrat- 
ically disposed,  we  must  recognize  the 
value  of  grandparents,  and  more  or  less 
agree  with  the  "Autocrat"  that  a  suc- 
cessful education  does  well  to  begin  with 
them.  Truly  sensibilities  and  their  early 
encouragement  are  significant,  and  the 
qualities  which  they  endow  and  engender 
equally  so  ;  and  the  tendency  that  comes 
in  the  wake  of  a  too  intensive  or  uncrit- 
ical faith  in  the  equal  privileges  of  demo- 
cracy, or  in  the  healing  and  levelling 
mission  of  education,  or  as  a  solace  for 
personal  deficiency,  —  the  tendency  to 
look  upon  the  qualities  thus  conferred  as 
incidental,  unessential  or  superficial,  is 
for   most   applications   misleading,  and 


i8      THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

readily  becomes  a  popular  fallacy  intol- 
erant of  its  counterpart,  the  unpopular 
truth.  The  important  and  the  practical 
emphasis,  however,  is  upon  the  true  ap- 
praisal of  sensibility  wherever  found,  how- 
ever conditioned.  Yet  in  thus  holding, 
one  does  not  question  that  there  circu- 
lates, and  often  at  par,  a  deceptive  sur- 
face polish,  a  glitter  that  may  be  a  thin 
plating  or  quite  palpably  brazen ;  does 
not  suppose  that  the  race  of  snobs  and 
cads  is  disappearing ;  does  not  forget 
Lowell's  pointed  reminder  that  the  **  con- 
ceit of  singularity  "  may  be  resorted  to  as 
a  "  natural  recoil  from  our  uneasy  con- 
sciousness of  being  commonplace."  The 
view  finds  a  partial  consolation  in  the 
conclusion  that  those  who  would  assume 
the  outer  show  of  quality  without  honestly 
acquiring  its  warrant  express  a  distorted 
appreciation  thereof ;  and  it  finds  a  more 
real  consolation  in  the  conviction  that  the 
plating  and  the  glitter  somehow  manage 
to  disclose  to  the  discerning  the  fabric  of 


MANNER  19 

their  skeletons ;  that  only  good  leather 
will  permit  of  the  taxing  processes  of 
cure  and  treatment  that  make  possible 
an  enduring  and  high-grade  polish. 


II 


The  emphasis  of  sensibility  commits 
one  to  an  ideal.  It  bears  against  the 
vaunted  glory  of  a  triumphantly  demo- 
cratic education,  that  professes  to  manu- 
facture wholesale  ready-to-wear  gar- 
ments duly  heralded  (though  as  yet 
without  those  fascinating  plates  of  the 
tailor-made  youth  and  maiden)  in  the 
annual  Fall  college  catalogues,  and  suit- 
ed to  all  figures  irrespective  of  sex,  creed, 
endowment,  or  previous  condition  of  ser- 
vitude. Naturally  the  system  selects  and 
makes  much  of  those  generic  contours  in 
the  human  figure  that  lend  themselves 
most  readily  to  drapery ;  studies  are 
chosen  that  are  easily  taught  upon  the 
basis  of  a  slender  stock  of  sensibilities, 
such  as  demand  a  certain  aptness  of 
acquisition,   a   modest  application,  and 


EDUCATION  21 

a  carrying  power  sufficient  to  meet  a 
routine  inspection.  It  glosses  over  the 
cultures  that  grow  too  directly  out  of  sen- 
sibility, pins  its  faith  to  what  may  be  tab- 
ulated and  scaled,  rather  than  upon  what 
must  be  judged  and  appraised  by  an  in- 
sight inhospitable  to  statistical  standards ; 
and  eventually  confers  its  "  Bachelor  of 
Arts,"  because  the  candidate  presumably 
has  some  acquaintance  with  everything 
but  the  arts,  and  would  look  least  appro- 
priate or  comfortable  with  laurel  or  bay 
about  his  brow. 

It  would  seem  to  follow  that  so  far  as 
the  significant  qualities,  which  it  is  pe- 
culiarly the  business  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion to  develop  in  the  selected  youth  of 
each  generation,  depend  upon  sensibili- 
ties, it  becomes  the  educative  function 
to  further  select  rigorously,  to  weed  out 
strenuously,  to  lead  forward  and  upward 
by  the  inspiration  of  example,  by  the 
suggestiveness  of  precept  that  is  itself 
the  issue  of  the  qualities  it  aims  to  ex- 


22      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

pand.  To  discover  sensibilities  and  deep- 
en them,  to  discourage  the  inept,  to  sep- 
arate the  sheep  from  the  goats,  is  a  serv- 
ice to  both ;  for  it  directs  each  to  more 
suitable  pasture.  In  so  far  as  our  educa- 
tional procedure  refuses  to  recognize 
this  situation  and  to  realize  its  respons- 
ibilities, it  misleads  ;  it  takes  the  broader 
but  not  the  wiser  path.  It  seems  to  favor 
the  impression  that  all  stalks  may  bear 
roses,  that  some  do  so  in  spite  of  ne- 
glect or  with  judicious  neglect,  that  oth- 
ers need  only  a  higher  temperature,  more 
fertilizer,  or  a  longer  time  to  develop 
the  buds ;  and  only  the  incorrigible  re- 
vert to  cabbages.  The  two  views  lead 
to  wide  differences  of  emphasis  despite  a 
community  of  interest  and  a  sympathy 
of  motive.  The  one  proceeds  upon  the 
direct  capacities  that  respond  to  teach- 
ing ;  the  other  encourages  what  each  may 
assimilate,  under  stimulus  of  guidance, 
or  must  teach  himself.  The  one  scatters 
over  the  paths  of  learning  minutely  la- 


THE   ELECTIVE  SYSTEM     23 

belled  sign-posts,  maintains  a  coddling 
chaperonage  over  the  lost,  strayed  or 
stolen,  admonishes  the  heedless  to  keep 
off  the  grass  and  away  from  the  water's 
edge.  The  other  sets  the  young  idea  to 
browse,  to  explore,  to  examine,  to  report, 
to  take  a  wiser  companion  upon  a  stroll, 
to  try  an  occasional  plunge  to  quicken 
a  hesitant  courage  ;  in  brief  to  find  him- 
self in  an  environment  stimulating  to  any 
worthy  quality  he  may  possess.  Routine 
and  determination  will  be  enlisted  and 
enforced  when  once  the  quest  is  earn- 
estly on,  the  goal  cherished,  or  the  en- 
joyment of  the  pursuit  aroused. 

A  more  sympathetic  recognition  of  the 
claims  of  sensibility  stands  out  conspicu- 
ously in  our  higher  education  as  a  whim- 
pering, if  not  a  crying  need.  The  urgency 
of  its  satisfaction  is  inherent  in  the  con- 
ception of  education  as  a  selection  and 
reenforcement  of  quality,  —  admittedly 
the  test  and  issue  alike  of  native  though 
perfectible  sensibility.    It  was  as  proper 


24      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

as  inevitable  that  with  the  glorious  ex- 
pansion of  the  intellectual  horizon  that  is 
ours  and  was  our  fathers',  we  should  feel 
the  imperative  obligation  of  shaping  the 
newer  education  to  the  newer  knowledge, 
boldly  to  venture  new  worlds  for  old. 
But  with  the  vista  of  half  a  century,  the 
lights  and  shadows  have  become  fixed. 
The  elective  system,  typical  of,  though 
by  no  means  wholly  responsible  for,  these 
untoward  tendencies,  might  well  stand 
as  a  form  of  rational  liberty,  not  of  un- 
bridled license,  and  thus  appeal  to  the 
sensibilities  ;  yet  the  privilege  should  not 
be  used  to  discover  by  costly  trial  for 
how  many  and  how  various  pursuits  the 
student  has  no  capabilities,  but  be  en- 
listed to  foster  those  which  he  has  dis- 
covered within  himself.  And  the  greatest 
hindrance  to  such  discovery  lies  in  the 
otherwise  directed  set,  the  practical  tem- 
per, the  weakly  educative  influences  of 
his  environment.  The  loss  of  the  older 
influence  that  sprang  from  the  apprecia- 


THE   ELECTIVE  SYSTEM     25 

tion  of  quality,  doubtless  of  a  different 
range  of  quality,  must  somehow  be  rein- 
stated, if  we  are  to  remain  permanently 
satisfied  with  the  exchange. 


Ill 

It  is  indeed  possible  to  acquire  a  cer- 
tain expertness,  a  facility  born  of  experi- 
ence, founded,  it  may  be,  upon  a  fair  ex- 
ecutive and  constructive  talent,  and  it 
may  be,  upon  a  meagre  one ;  and  with 
this  equipment  to  launch  one's  craft  upon 
the  open  waters  and  amid  keen  compe- 
tition of  like  vessels  reach  a  snug  harbor. 
These  trainable  facilities,  with  a  slight 
ingredient  of  a  limited  imagination,  and 
a  larger  portion  of  enthusiasm,  produce 
the  average  and  desirable  citizen,  —  the 
available  practitioner.  Yet  in  so  far  as 
the  profession  involves  it,  feebleness  of 
sensibility  may  prove  and  should  prove 
the  most  serious  handicap.  Easily  the 
best  example  of  such  a  calling  that 
makes  composite  demands  upon  human 


ARCHITECTURE  27 

quality  is  that  of  the  architect.  Yet  archi- 
tects of  the  quahty  described  secure  and 
deserve  employment  and  build  houses 
not  devoid  of  merit,  yet  curiously  toler- 
ant of  demerit ;  they  respond  imitatively 
to  any  improvement  in  vogue  or  in  the 
increased  sensibilities  of  patrons :  they 
advance  with  time  and  tide,  yet  remain 
uncertain,  mediocre,  styleless  and  in- 
significant. While  those  of  lesser  endow- 
ment, though  not  markedly  of  lesser 
skill,  who  likewise  build  houses,  suggest 
one  or  other  of  the  familiar  German  re- 
frains :  ^^  Aber  fragt  mich  itur  nicht  wie .'" 
or  **  Ich  weiss  nicht  was  soil  es  bedeutenP 
But  infuse  into  this  composite  of  worthy 
qualities  the  leaven  of  appreciation,  and 
it  at  once  carries  all  talents  enlisted  in 
its  service  to  a  higher  plane.  One  might 
cite  photography  as  a  peculiarly  convinc- 
ing example :  for  the  transformation  from 
the  chamber  of  horrors  —  with  inquisi- 
tional apparatus  applied  to  delicate  spots 
of    one's  anatomy,  and   the   injunction 


28      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

to  assume  a  smirking  superiority  to  the 
indignity  —  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  stu- 
dio and  the  wholly  altered  standards  of 
purpose  and  technique,  was  due,  in  the 
main,  to  the  heightened  sensibilities  of 
the  amateur. 

But  enough  of  the  pedagogical  mood ; 
and  let  the  other  side  be  heard.  Life,  the 
objector  interposes,  is  not  a  studio  nor  a 
drawing-room.  Admittedly  not.  It  is  real 
and  earnest ;  and  in  many  callings  the 
aesthetic  aspects  are  of  all  the  most  neg- 
ligible. If  I  had  to  face  the  opulent  ne- 
cessity of  a  surgical  operation,  I  should 
be  looking  only  for  the  best  surgeon.  He 
might,  if  he  chanced  to  be  of  that  kidney, 
wear  a  purple  and  green  necktie,  use 
musk  and  double  negatives,  and  still  be 
the  one  chosen.  And  yet,  when  we  ex- 
amine into  the  qualities  that  make  the 
great  physician  of  bodies  curiously  en- 
tangled with  souls,  we  begin  to  find  that 
sensibilities  count,  giving  expertness  its 
finer    edge,    separating    the   very   best 


SENSIBILITY  29 

from  the  very  good.  I  contend  simply 
that  there  are  few  callings  demanding 
any  high  order  of  quality  in  which  sen- 
sibility is  not  a  vital  factor ;  few  occu- 
pations that  do  not  reflect  for  better  or 
for  worse,  for  richer  or  for  poorer,  the 
fundamental  distinctions  of  human  qual- 
ity presented  by  depths  and  varieties  of 
sensibility.  Yet  it  is  time  to  direct 
attention  away  from  the  supporting 
sensibilities  and  towards  the  achieve- 
ments in  terms  of  human  quality  which 
they  support.  In  the  psychological  divi- 
sion, thinking  —  logical  insight  —  and 
doing — coordinated  energy — point  to 
the  distinctive  varieties  of  quality  ;  as  in 
the  practical  world  we  seek  intelligence 
and  skill,  heads  and  hands,  judging  the 
qualities  of  men  by  their  deeds.  Assuredly 
it  will  not  endanger  the  dignity  or  the 
supremacy  of  the  sensibilities  to  admit 
with  the  convincing  irrelevancy  of  The 
Mikado's  exalted  factotum,  that  in  many 
of  the  situations  of  life,  "  the  flowers  that 


30      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

bloom  in  the  Spring  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case." 

For  the  moment,  consider,  not  the  lilies 
of  the  field,  but  the  toilers  and  spinners. 
The  craft  of  the  tool  and  the  fruit  of  the 
loom  will  yet  reflect  the  quality  of  the  arti- 
san, and  above  all,  his  native  intelligence. 
No  quality  is  more  difficult  to  define; 
and  the  psychologist,  despite  the  refine- 
ments of  his  laboratory  and  his  special  in- 
terest in  the  solution  of  just  such  practical 
issues,  has  not  solved  to  his  own  or  any 
other's  satisfaction  the  final  method  of  dis- 
closing or  testing  what  with  his  fellowmen 
he  is  constantly  appealing  to,  namely, 
general  intelligence.  He  cannot  doubt 
that  in  some  real  sense  the  faculty  exists, 
despite  his  emphasis  that  so  much  of  hu- 
man activity  as  he  investigates  is  made 
up  of  many  and  diverse  special  facilities. 
The  quality,  reflective  of  a  world  in  which 
thistles  grow  thicker  than  figs,  is  most 
conspicuous  in  its  negative  fruition  to 
which  we  apply  unsparingly  the  epithet, 


STUPIDITY  31 

stupidity,  —  a  ratlier  democratic  quality- 
distributed  with  sufficient  irregularity  to 
permit  the  unexpected  to  happen  and 
make  the  world  interesting.  For  practi- 
cal issues  it  is  well  to  have  in  mind  not 
the  academic  type  of  the  quality :  "  He 
made  an  instrument  to  know  if  the  moon 
shine  at  full  or  no,"  — nor  the  guileless- 
ness  of  the  wise  men  of  Kampen,  who, 
to  save  their  precious  town-bell  when 
danger  threatened,  rowed  it  out  to  sea 
and  cut  a  notch  in  the  side  of  the  boat  to 
mark  the  place  where  they  threw  it  over- 
board. Ignorance  is  not  stupidity,  though 
the  two,  like  birds  of  a  feather,  fraternize 
in  spontaneous  sympathy.  It  is  well  to 
note  that  stupidity,  though  partly  an  ab- 
sence of  common  sense,  is  as  well  a  de- 
ficiency of  common  sensibility,  —  the  in- 
ability to  perceive  a  situation  being  but 
a  part  of  the  incapacity  to  meet  it.  The 
former  as  the  less  teachable  becomes  the 
more  baffling  ;  and  the  calm,  imperturb- 
able complacency  oftiill-fledged  stupid- 


32      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

ity  presents  the  most  desperate  of  hu- 
man situations,  hopeless  even  to  super- 
human powers  :  "  Gegen  Dummheit 
k'dinpfen  selbst  die  Goiter  vergebens^ 

I  urge  then  that  in  the  composite  qual- 
ity of  stupidity  the  failure  to  see  and  ap- 
preciate is  yet  more  characteristic  than 
the  logical  defect,  the  dearth  of  rational 
foresight ;  for  it  is  the  lack  of  penetration 
that  makes  dullness  of  quality.  Such  are 
the  dull,  hacking  their  way  clumsily 
through  difficulties,  oblivious  alike  of  ana- 
tomy and  the  fine  art  of  dissection.  The 
hand,  the  practical  prehensile  instrument, 
becomes  as  pertinent  an  embodiment 
of  this  faculty  as  does  the  instrument  of 
our  mental  comprehension.  Dexterity 
of  hand  or  mind  is  the  issue  of  sensibil- 
ity ;  mental  awkwardness  and  manual  stu- 
pidity have  a  like  basis.  Indeed,  touch 
lays  claim  to  be  the  most  personal  of 
all  sensibilities,  and  if  we  may  credit 
so  unique  a  witness  as  Miss  Helen  Kel- 
ler, supplies  a  more  reliable  estimate  of 


DULLNESS  33 

human  quality  than  the  superficial  allure- 
ments appealing  to  the  eye.  The  tactile 
sensibility  and  its  kindred  in  the  motor 
mechanisms  vitalize  behavior,  supply  the 
springs  of  action,  the  tone  of  achieve- 
ment, and  therein  find  their  worthy  con- 
summation. Yet  the  whole  is  supported 
upon  a  sensory  basis  of  nicety  of  discrimi- 
nation, which  becomes  the  distinctive 
quality  of  the  pianist's  execution,  as  of 
the  potter's  thumb  as  it  carries  grace  and 
texture  to  the  product  of  his  wheel ;  and 
the  plying  of  that  deft  trade  that  inter- 
changes the  meum  and  tuum  without  so 
much  as  a  disturbing  appeal  to  the  sub- 
conscious, appropriates  with  the  direct- 
ness of  slang  the  tribute  of  a  good 
"  touch."  And  contrariwise  in  the  home- 
lier occupations,  the  marrers  of  furniture, 
the  nickers  of  plates,  the  bangers  of 
doors,  the  heavy-stepped,  loud-voiced, 
the  slatterns  and  shufflers,  —  what  are 
these  but  the  tokens  of  insensibility  ooz- 
ing out  through  bone  and  muscle  ?  Let 


34     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

us  then  take  pride  in  our  allegiance  of 
speech  and  culture  that  makes  delicacy 
the  hall-mark  of  a  gentleman,  that  still 
brings  homage  deep  and  articulate  to 
the  gentler  sex. 

It  thus  appears  that  each  member  of 
the  psychological  triumvirate,  —  feeling, 
thinking,  doing,  —  the  departments  of 
inquiry,  of  the  judiciary,  and  of  the  exec- 
utive, —  derives  his  warrant  in  some 
measure  from  the  supporting  quality  of 
sensibility.  An  alert  responsiveness  to 
situations  as  they  arise,  the  discerning 
insight  that  interprets  them,  are  of  a 
nature  all  compact  with  the  resourceful- 
ness in  their  handling,  the  tact  that 
steadies  judgment,  the  refinement  that 
shapes  conduct  to  its  finer  issues.  Our 
sensibilities  are,  and  the  most  cultivated 
desire  them  to  be,  complex,  though  in 
their  many-sidedness  compatible  with  a 
directness  of  manner  and  an  ease  of  ex- 
ecution reflecting  a  proper  self-respectful 
confidence  and  an  accomplished  adjust- 


ENERGY  AND   SKILL        35 

merit  to  our  sphere  and  task.  The  forci- 
bleness  of  our  thinking  and  doing  is 
resident  in  the  cutting  edge  rather  than 
in  the  mass  and  momentum  of  our  ex- 
pressions. 

Yet  in  fairness  let  us  take  a  parting 
glance  backward  at  the  qualities  of  the 
well-regulated,  vigorous  man,  the  man 
of  brawn  and  muscle,  if  you  like,  modestly 
trained  in  their  useful  application.  Sensi- 
bilities, we  are  admonished,  unsupported 
by  energies,  are  likely  to  spend  themselves 
feebly.  Most  of  the  business  of  life  con- 
sists in  getting  things  done,  not  in  fussing 
about  the  manner  of  doing  them.  It  is 
obviously  foolish  to  underestimate  in  any 
measure  the  workaday  qualities  de- 
manded by  workaday  tasks.  We  are  all 
ready  to  appreciate  the  position  of  the 
young  suitor  who  met  his  prospective 
father-in-law's  inquiries  as  to  his  assets 
in  life  with  the  assurance  that  he  was 
"  chuck  full  of  days'  work."  On  the  whole 
it  seems  unnecessary  to  enforce  this  form 


36      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

of  virtue  upon  dogged  John  Bull  or  his 
hustling  brother  Jonathan.  Yet  mere  en- 
ergy, no  more  than  unrestricted  oppor- 
tunity, will  accomplish  none  of  the  great- 
er and  few  of  the  lesser  things  desirable 
and  worth  while.  Particularly  as  we  rise 
from  the  barer  routines,  the  lowlier  tasks 
—  nor  need  we  emerge  to  more  than  the 
plains  and  lowlands  of  human  occupa- 
tions —  does  the  support  of  sensibilities 
cease  to  be  negligible,  and  as  we  ascend, 
become  commanding.  In  parallel  meas- 
ure does  the  slight  emphasis  or  callous 
disregard  of  sensibility  cheapen  the  hu- 
man product,  lower  standards  and  deaden 
the  vitality  of  men.  Yet  whatever  the  in- 
dustry, however  delicate  the  machinery, 
motive'power  is  indispensable.  Man  does 
not  live  by  bread  alone  ;  but  he  does  not 
live  without  it.  The  present  plea  sets 
forth  only  that  the  human  output  should 
not  be  measured  in  horse-power,  nor 
human  intelligence  by  horse-sense.  To 
inherit,  cultivate,  and  keep  in  good  train- 


ENERGY   AND   SKILL         37 

ing  a  thinking  machine  that  will  run  re- 
liably for  an  eight-hour  day,  that  will 
support  an  artisan  intelligently  and  pro- 
fitably at  his  task,  is  no  despicable  found- 
ation for  the  business  of  a  livelihood,  nor 
for  the  joys  and  responsibilities  of  life. 
And  though  the  circle  of  achievement  has 
a  limited  circumference  and  the  radius 
of  capability  does  not  expand  materially 
with  experience,  yet  its  adequacy  proves 
its  worth.  So  also  of  endurance,  patience, 
vigor,  and  best  of  all,  determination.  But 
is  there  any  real  danger  that  these  profit- 
able qualities,  that,  unlike  virtue,  which 
should  do  so,  really  bring  their  own  re- 
ward, will  fail  to  be  rightly  appraised  in 
a  world  so  busy  in  weighing,  and  meas- 
uring, and  tabulating,  so  enthusiastically 
displaying  its  newly  acquired  statisti- 
cal sensibilities  ?  All  this  is  indeed  an- 
other story.  We  are  considering  human- 
ity qualitatively,  not  quantitatively  ;  or, 
speaking  by  the  book,  while  recognizing 
the  presence  of  the  two  variables  in  the 


38      THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

human  equation,  we  are  discussing  the 
fluctuations  of  the  one  rather  than  the 
other.  And  the  justification  therefor  will 
duly  appear :  for  it  is  this  aspect  of  the 
qualities  of  men  that  appeals  for  empha- 
sis and  protection.  It  is  upon  the  esteem 
of  the  upper  ranges  of  quality  that  the 
life  of  civilization  depends ;  as  it  is  the 
choicer  qualities  that  become  increasingly 
significant  in  the  more  directive  and  more 
distinctive  service.  Any  neglect  or  feeble 
appreciation  of  the  commanding  worth 
of  the  finer  human  qualities  obstructs 
human  progress  and  endangers  the  fate 
of  the  humanities. 

Thus  recognizing  how  the  progress  and 
efBciency  of  sensibility  requires  the  sup- 
porting arm  of  energy  on  the  one  side, 
of  clear-sightedness  on  the  other, — for 
obviously  we  look  for  leadership  neither 
among  the  halt  nor  the  blind,  —  we  yet 
adhere  to  the  essential  worth  of  this  form- 
ative quality  in  the  distinctive  make-up 
of  ho7no  sapiens.  And  resuming,  we  ask: 


ENERGY  AND   SKILL         39 

How  shall  we  range  the  qualities  of  men : 
as  students  if  we  are  studious,  or  like  An- 
tony, "  wander  through  the  streets  and 
note  the  qualities  of  people"?  Unques- 
tionably the  former,  if  we  may  choose: 
presumably  the  latter,  if  we  must.  Clearly 
it  is  through  the  variations  of  distribu- 
tion and  emphasis  of  the  several  forma- 
tive qualities  that  man  becomes  com- 
posite, and  men  most  unequal.  Our  most 
common  term  to  indicate  in  the  individual 
the  result  of  such  endowment  and  experi- 
ence IS,  character ;  and  it  is  this  which  may 
be  said  to  be  the  proper  study  of  mankind. 
The  study  is  largely  empirical,  partly  aca- 
demic, and  but  sporadically  scientific; 
though  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  he  not  alone, 
wished  promptly  to  give  it  scientific 
standing,  and  proposed  the  name  "Etho- 
logy." *  He  made  a  logical  diagnosis  of 

*  It  is  interesting  to  record  that  the  term  and  the 
project  still  survive,  or  have  been  revived.  There 
is  in  London  an  Ethological  Society  which  since 
1905  publishes  The  Ethological  Journal;  but  the 
tendenz  of  the  movement  varies  rather  widely  from 
that  which  inspired  Mill's  project.    The  group  of 


40     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

its  mode  of  procedure,  gave  instructions 
for  the  interpretations  of  the  records  of 
etholog-ical  pulse  and  temperature,  and 
of  waste  and  expenditure,  when  once 
they  were  obtained,  but  was  well  aware 
that  he  could  give  no  very  explicit  di- 
rections in  regard  to  filling  out  the  charts 
which  his  system  supplied.  This  perhaps 
he  regarded  as  more  nearly  the  business 
of  the  trained  nurse  than  of  the  diagnos- 
ing physician ;  and  I  shall  so  far  agree 
with  him  as  not  to  attempt  it  here. 

investigations  belonging  to  what  is  accepted  as 
"  Individual  Psychology  "  represents  the  most  spe- 
cific advance;  while  a  considerable  range  of  sugges- 
tion and  profitable  analysis  has  been  contributed 
in  recent  years,  particularly  by  French  and  Italian 
writers,  under  the  rubric  of  the  Psychology  of 
Character.  These  phases  of  the  topic  will  be  con- 
sidered in  a  forthcoming  volume  on  Character  and 
Temperament.  The  pertinence  of  this  note  is  to 
direct  attention,  as  has  been  done  in  the  preface, 
to  the  several  aspects  of  the  qualities  of  men,  which 
stand  in  the  background  of  this  survey.  For  prac- 
tical use  the  charting  of  the  smaller  area  on  a  larger 
scale  is  indispensable  to  the  more  professionally 
motived  traveller. 


IV 

Of  the  older  solutions,  —  likewise  the 
issue  of  a  mingling  of  casual  observation 
and  studious  insight  —  the  doctrine  of 
temperaments  is  notable ;  and  this,  if  we 
examine  it  anew,  will  appear  very  difler- 
ently  in  the  focus  of  our  modern  illumin- 
ants  than  under  the  uncertain  rush- 
lights of  mediaeval  lore.  Temperament 
means  blending.  The  famous  blades  of 
Toledo  —  light,  elastic,  strong,  durable, 
and  effective  —  reached  their  perfection 
by  careful  refinement  of  crude  ore,  al- 
loyed and  annealed  with  expert  skill, 
forged  and  hammered  and  ground  to 
edge  and  fibre,  the  success  depending 
upon  the  mutual  support  of  the  processes 
and  the  natural  vein  of  the  metal.  Such 
is  the  temper  of  steel,  and  such  the  tem- 
per of  man.  Moreover  one  quality  com- 


42      THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

bats  another.  Make  the  edge  too  light 
and  thin,  and  though  sharp,  it  nicks 
readily  and  lacks  strength ;  thicken  it, 
and  it  becomes  strong  but  unwieldy,  and 
loses"!  elasticity  ;  make  it  too  elastic,  and 
it  will  not  bear  the  strain  of  a  powerful 
thrust.  It  was  the  combination  of  all  vir- 
tues that  made  wonderful  the  temper  of 
the  Toledo  blade,  which,  bent  in  a  circle, 
seemed  to  combine  within  itself  the  range 
of  desirable  qualities.  While  not  with 
such  versatility  of  talent  or  genius,  it  is 
the  temper,  the  blending  of  composite 
qualities  that  makes  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men ;  and  for  the  most  part  makes 
them  complex  and  diverse,  and  with  that 
uncertainty  of  the  mittabile  setnper  that 
is  not  wholly  the  feminine  prerogative. 
So  far,  we  may  safely  proceed  in  analy- 
sis, whether  from  the  academic  or  from 
the  layman 's  approach :  to  recognize 
that  the  varieties  of  the  qualities  of  men 
are  in  the  one  view  few  and  fundamen- 
\j  tal,  traceable,  if  our  analyses  were  ade- 


TEMPERAMENT  43 

quale,  to  typical  blendings  of  common 
factors  of  endowment,  —  later,  widely  j 
differentiated  by  the  moulding  forces  of 
experience  and  the  patterns  and  media 
of  expression ;  to  recognize  in  a  supple- 
mentary view,  the  compatibilities  and 
incompatibilities  of  quality, —  how  the 
values  of  the  factors  in  any  one  formula 
are  mutually  affected  by  one  another  and 
by  their  combination  ;  and  yet  to  recog- 
nize in  a  complementary  view  the  trans- 
formation and  involution  of  quality  in 
the  maze  of  circumstance,  the  stress  of 
occupation,  the  encouragement  of  insti- 
tutions, the  favor  of  careers.  Nearer  we 
may  not  approach  to  the  promised  land ; 
yet  of  the  nature  of  its  soil  and  climate 
and  products,  this  traditional  knowledge, 
confirmed  by  casual  report,  will  prove 
of  service  for  our  survey. 

It  is  without  question  a  legitimate  func- 
tion of  psychological  study  to  set  forth 
the  essential  varieties  of  character  and 
trace  them  to  their  tap-roots,  to  deter- 


44      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

mine  their  several  sources  and  planes  of 
differentiation.  But  as  Bacon  ®f  old  told 
us  of  all  studies  :  "  they  teach  not  their 
own  use  and  there  is  a  wisdom  without 
them  and  above  them  won  by  observa- 
tion." In  its  practical  phases  character 
becomes  the  great  common  denominator 
of  all  human  fractions.  Artist,  sculptor, 
poet,  dramatist,  novelist,  have  their  sev- 
eral and  suitable  media  for  its  delinea- 
tion ;  preacher,  orator,  editor,  publicist, 
lawyer,  physician,  teacher,  parent,  mer- 
chant, manufacturer,  have  their  several 
and  often  discordant  modes  of  appeal  to 
its  composite  qualities,  as  each  touches 
upon  a  phase  of  the  whole.  Life  is  but 
character  in  action  ;  what  we  take  from 
it,  what  we  put  into  it;  how  we  find 
ourselves  in  it ;  how  we  express  our  indiv- 
idualities, and  respond  in  sympathy  or  in 
antipathy  to  the  expressions  of  other 
fragments,  measures  for  each  his  expert- 
ness  as  a  practitioner  in  the  humanities. 
So  what  in  this  wide,  wide  world,  and 


THEORY   AND   PRACTICE    45 

in  the  present  long-range  survey  is  there 
for  the  psychologist  to  contribute,  and 
that  in  brief  numbers  ?  Perhaps,  first  of  all, 
this  :  the  wisdom  of  the  cathedra  is  one, 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  agora  is  another. 
To  hold  them  apart  and  yet  to  bring 
them  together  is  the  recurrent  problem 
of  theory  and  practice,  the  rendering  to 
each  of  its  own.  Violate  the  spirit  of  the 
former,  bending  all  to  rash  uses,  and  you 
emerge  with  fortune-telling,  phrenology, 
astrology,  palmistry,  and  all  the  historic 
and  crass  modern  superstitions  that  read 
character  in  stars  or  entrails,  in  cranial 
punctuation-marks  meaningless  without 
the  verbal  context,  and  in  lines  of  palm 
reminiscent  of  the  arboreal  habitat  from 
which  we  sprang, — all  of  them  irrele- 
vant and  disordered  cryptograms.  Neg- 
lect the  allegiance  of  the  other,  and  you 
encourage  blind  pedantry,  self-indulgent 
scholasticism,  sterility  of  dogma,  and 
high  impulse  spending  itself  weakly, 
fanaticism  without  grace  of  compromise, 


46      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

or  what  Mr.  Wells  calls  the  unmanage- 
able wildness  of  the  good.  The  wagon 
hitched  to  the  stars  must  keep  its  wheels 
on  earth  and  accommodate  its  motion  to 
the  vicissitudes  of  earthly  highways. 

Yet  when  all  is  said  and  done,  the 
man-of-the-world  type  of  psychologist, 
who  seems  to  be  coming  to  complement 
his  academic  counterpart,  will  have  an 
authoritative  voice  in  charting  this  en- 
gaging domain.  From  the  one  approach 
he  will,  as  we  have  seen,  trace  qualities 
back  to  their  supporting  sensibilities, 
noting  their  type,  their  depth,  their  dis- 
tribution ;  then  to  the  relating  powers  of 
thought-sequence,  the  chief  determinant 
being  in  how  far  the  exercise  thereof 
follows  the  clue  of  logical  anticipation 
or  of  the  freer  imagination;  and  lastly, 
to  the  vigor,  scope,  and  effectiveness  of 
the  expressions,  the  functions  executive. 
Of  such  bearing  is  the  academic  formula 
of  character  :  a  blending  of  such  sensibil- 
ities —  strong  or  weak,  coarse  or  fine,  in- 


THEORY  AND    PRACTICE    47 

tellectual  or  emotional,  artistic  or  lite- 
rary, social  or  commercial ;  of  such  man- 
ner of  thinking,  —  quick  or  slow,  deep 
or  shallow,  broad  or  narrow,  poetic  or 
prosaic,  theoretical  or  practical ;  and  of 
such  powers  of  expression,  —  sustained 
or  flighty,  energetic  or  anaemic,  concen- 
trated or  dissipated,  determined  or  weak- 
kneed.  And  upon  such  basis  he  deter- 
mines types  of  temperament,  manners 
of  blending,  which,  though  not  notably 
helpful  in  shaping  careers  nor  in  solving 
special  perplexities,  yet  in  their  domi- 
nant contours,  and  again  instructively 
in  their  exaggerations,  even  in  their 
abnormal  deviations,  become  deeply  sig- 
nificant. Of  such  stamp  is  the  science 
of  character ;  quite  differently  motived 
and  otherwise  centred  is  the  art  of 
character,  —  analytic  also,  yet  with  an 
impressionistic  bias,  proceeding  upon 
sympathetic  insight,  upon  the  discern- 
ment of  a  ready  imagination  and  the 
corrective   of   a  rich   experience.    With 


48      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

this  quality,  sometimes  supported  by  a 
keen  interest  in  studies  psychological 
and  sometimes  wholly  unrelated  to  it, 
there  develop  the  psychological  novelist, 
painter,  sculptor,  dramatist,  or  musician, 
—  a  George  Eliot,  a  Sargent,  a  Rodin, 
an  Ibsen,  a  Wagner. 


V 


In  this  domain  wliose  contours  we  are 
following  but  not  traversing,  there  is  yet 
another  vista,  a  selective  regard  that 
yields  an  available  picture.  As  we  look 
from  afar  upon  the  landscape  of  human 
character,  what  features,  we  ask  contem- 
platively, shall  we  regard,  what  formative 
traits  select  as  most  distinctive  ?  But  as 
we  mingle  at  close  range  with  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  men,  we  are  impressed 
with  the  complex  and,  what  we  are  in- 
clined to  call,  the  unjust  complications  of 
our  enterprise.  Our  difficulties  are  two- 
fold :  first  to  detect  quality  in  achieve- 
ment always  conditioned  by  circum- 
stance ;  and  what  is  equally  perplexing, 
to  detect  fundamental  qualities  in  the 
different  manners  of  their  appearance. 
On   the   one    hand    the    handicaps    of 


50      THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

poverty,  of  discouragement,  of  the  few 
against  the  many,  of  antagonistic  aims, 
and  untoward  fortune ;  on  the  other  a 
shehered  pampering,  the  open  sesame 
of  gold  or  privilege,  popularity,  and  the 
subtler  intrusions  of  influence.  Amid 
such  discrepancy  of  circumstance  how 
can  we  gauge  the  measure  of  worth,  dis- 
tinguish the  insignia  of  rank  and  of  true 
quality,  how  detect  the  man  under  the 
ermine,  the  robe,  the  surplice,  or  the  beg- 
gar's cloak?  If  honor  waited  steadily 
upon  achievement,  and  achievement  were 
the  equally  constant  issue  of  quality, 
judgment  would  be  simple,  and  secure ; 
though  a  psychological  discrimination 
would  still  find  its  metier  in  tracing  dif- 
ferent orders  and  applications  of  the 
qualities  of  men  to  their  underlying 
sources.  But  combine  and  confuse  quali- 
ties and  achievements  with  circumstance, 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  schools  and  of 
human  institutions  —  though  applied  in 
the  spirit  of  Solomon  —  prove  wholly  in- 


QUALITY   IN   UTOPIA        51 

adequate.  The  picture  becomes  too  com- 
plex in  motive,  too  baffling  in  detail ; 
and  after  the  manner  of  mortals,  we  dis- 
pose of  its  intricacies  by  substituting  for 
it  another  —  a  simplified  outline  in  dia- 
gram—  of  our  own  design,  embodying 
a  personal  preference.  We  equalize  or 
neutralize  circumstance,  and  summon 
imagination  to  the  rescue  of  analysis. 
The  myth  and  the  wish  direct  the  adven- 
ture. 

Back  to  Arcadia  or  on  to  Utopia  seems 
the  only  way  out.  Let  us  divest  ourselves 
of  circumstance,  disregard  convention, 
and  look  upon  merit  face  to  face,  not  re- 
flected darkly  in  the  glass  of  fortune. 
With  the  outlook  thus  transformed,  the 
vista  may  develop  into  a  vision,  the 
problem  become  a  dream.  Thus  Plato 
fashioned  his  very  Athenian  republic ; 
More  his  cumbersome  Utopia  ;  and  their 
modern  disciples  —  Morris,  Howells,  Bel- 
lamy, and  Wells  —  dipped  in  the  future 
and  imaginatively  "  saw  the  vision  of  the 


52      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

world,  and  all  the  wonder  that  would 
be,"  or  should  be.  Yet  whether  or  not, 
unrestrained  by  a  distorted  reality,  we 
suit  reward  to  merit  and  avail  ourselves 
of  the  Utopian  privilege  of  fondly  con- 
structing a  world  with  more  conveniences 
for  being  happy  in  it  than  are  provided 
for  by  our  distressful  planet,  the  material 
for  such  constructions  must  ever  be  the 
same,  —  the  enduring  qualities  of  men. 
Yet  despite  the  mingling  of  circumstance 
with  disposition,  there  seems  to  be  borne 
in  upon  the  observer  and  student  alike, 
the  impression  of  a  "great  divide"  —  a 
two-class  division  of  humanity,  some- 
thing more  of  leadership  in  the  one,  of 
following  in  the  other ;  the  imaginative 
and  the  imitative ;  the  original  and  the 
\  conventional ;  the  alert  and  the  sluggish ; 
the  vibratory  and  the  unresponsive  ;  the 
digits  and  the  ciphers  in  the  curter  and 
severer  formulation.  The  distinction 
seems  to  extend  through  and  beyond  the 
limit  of  education,  clearly  so  of  learning ; 


ATHENIAN   AND   BCEOTIAN  53 

seems  like  a  natural  stream  to  make  its 
own  way  among  the  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men,  leaving  them  for  the  most  part 
with  approximate  fitness  and  amid  con- 
genial surroundings  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other  of  the  meandering  boundary. 
The  intellectuals  of  ancient  Greece  ap- 
parently enjoyed  the  same  prospect ;  and 
not  wholly  in  the  spirit  of  the  Hellenes 
and  the  Barbaroi  (of  Ourselves  and  the 
Other  Kind  in  modern  phrase),  they  clas- 
sified the  men  of  their  time  as  Athenian 
and  Bceotian.  As  we  have  expanded 
their  intuitive  demarcation,  we  gather  in 
the  one  class  the  men  of  alert  sensibility, 
imaginatively  free,  with  pronounced  char- 
acter, shaping  their  lives  by  principle, 
and  making  of  them  what  is  worthy  to 
be  called  a  career ;  and  in  the  other  those 
who  moderately  or  conspicuously  lack 
these  qualities.  Divided  at  their  widest 
span,  they  become  plainly  the  gifted  and 
the  dull ;  but  nearer  their  merging  points 
the  one  towers  above  the  other  in  that, 


54     THE  QUALITIES  OF   MEN 

while  he  alike  with  his  fellow  man  com- 
promises with  institutions  and  expresses 
his  purposes  through  them,  he  yet  affili- 
ates himself  with  the  worthier,  more  pro- 
gressive aspects  thereof,  follows  a  larger 
expediency,  is  not  submerged  in  the 
crowd  whose  impulses  he  shares. 

Here  and  now,  as  of  old,  lie  the  two 
camps  ;  and  all  that  we  have  done  since 
they  were  mustered  in  the  plains  and 
cities  of  Hellas  is  from  time  to  time  to 
change  the  names  on  their  standards. 
Athenian  has  ever  gathered  with  Athen- 
ian, Boeotian  with  Bceotian,  and  so  will 
it  ever  be.  True,  the  one  never  wholly 
loses  sympathy  for  the  other, — that  is  the 
saving  grace  of  humanity,  —  and  for 
practical  crises  they  may  be  united  in  a 
common  loyalty,  an  inclusive  patriotism ; 
whereby,  in  one  generation  or  another 
great  things  are  done.  Yet  in  times  of 
peaceful  venture  and  in  the  freer  choices 
of  life,  —  social,  intellectual,  political, 
sentimental,  sesthetic,  practical,  —  each 


BROMIDE  AND   SULPHITE   55 

will  drift  to  his  congenial  milieu,  will 
circulate  in  his  regular  or  irregular  orbit. 
Yet  the  distinction  is  fundamentally 
one  of  endowment,  of  temperament,  and 
mingles  with  the  slighter  rivulets  as  with 
the  larger  streams  of  life.  Its  modern 
phrasing  is  to  be  found  in  the  key  of 
pleasant  banter  ;  but  wisdom  in  and  out 
of  Shakespeare  often  appears  in  cap  and 
bells,  and  to  light  words  hang  weighty 
meanings.  Let  us  take  somewhat  seri- 
ously the  experiments  of  Mr.  Gillett  Bur- 
gess, who  with  the  aid  of  kindred  spirits 
has  passed  the  Boeotian  through  the 
chemical  laboratory  and  transmuted  him 
into  a  modern  Bromide,  and  has  found  a 
new  value  for  the  Athenian  in  the  form- 
ula of  the  Sulphite.  The  terms  reflect, 
almost  expose  too  barely  the  features  of 
their  appropriate  subjects.  His  calcula- 
bility  gives  the  Bromide  a  real  equation ; 
"  his  train  of  thought  can  never  get  off 
the  track ;  .  .  .  his  mind  keeps  regular 
office  hours  "  ;  and  blandly  and  happily 


\ 


56      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

he  reflects  his  surroundings,  and  finds 
in  the  conventional  maxims  of  Dame 
Grundy  (revised  version)  the  solutions  of 
his  ordinary  perplexities.  Though  he 
grasps  at  the  weather  as  at  a  life-preserv- 
er, as  a  salvation  in  time  of  conversa- 
tional need,  he  is  immune  to  the  subtler 
meteorology  of  the  intellectual  climate. 
Storm  and  stress  are  to  him  wild  oats 
and  folly,  and  primroses  primroses  on  all 
occasions ;  though  curiously  a  spade  is 
not  a  spade  for  the  sufficient  reason  that 
in  his  circles  a  leg  is  a  limb.  For  all  of 
which  he  is  affable,  steady,  thrifty,  useful. 
His  character  is  inevitably,  and  what- 
ever streaks  run  through  it,  platitudinous. 
If  he  belongs  to  the  emotional  variety 
of  his  species,  he  effuses  in  a  predict- 
able and  slenderly  gushing  stream.  He 
may  quite  legitimately  be  an  intellectual ; 
in  which  case  he  takes  his  food  with  a 
bourgeois  appetite,  with  no  epicurean 
foibles,  and  emerges  as  a  good  collector, 
a  middleman,  an  imitative  exponent.  As 


BROMIDE  AND   SULPHITE   57 

an  executive  he  becomes  a  steady  prac- 
titioner, a  compromising  adviser,  apt  at 
routine,  circumstantial,  minute,  orderly, 
—  the  safe  pillar  or  pilaster  or  spindle 
of  society. 

The  contrasting  qualities  of  the  Sulphite 
find  their  community  in  their  very  diver- 
sity ;  for  fundamentally  he  is  refractive, 
not  reflective.  "  Every  impression  made 
upon  him  is  split  up  into  component  rays 
of  thought;  he  sees  beauty,  humor, 
pathos,  horror,  and  sublimity  "  ;  and  what 
he  sees  he  orders  anew  through  the  me- 
dium of  his  own  personality.  He  is  not 
predictable,  though  logical ;  he  is  ever 
himself,  though  true  to  his  class  allegi- 
ance. He  is  decidedly  a  man  of  many 
types  and  many  occupations.  Raised  to 
the  nth  power  and  transferred  to  a  high- 
potential  milieu  he  becomes,  I  assume, 
the  superman.  Even  when  casually  en- 
countered he  reflects  definitely,  though 
it  may  be  limitedly,  the  independence 
of  leadership ;  he  is  a  factor,  small  or 


58      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

large,  a  digit  within  the  ten-place,  or  the 
hundred,  or  the  thousand,  never  a  cipher. 
Yet  he  is  this — so  far  as  his  Athenian 
blood  is  blue  —  by  virtue,  not  of  position 
but  of  inherent  quality.  He  is  unmistake- 
ably  to  be  recognized  by  his  omissions. 
"  He  eliminates  the  obvious"  ;  does  not 
go  back  to  Adam  or  the  Flood  to  find  a 
fulcrum  for  his  advances ;  and  carries  a 
fitting  perspective  applicable  though  dif- 
ferently to  forests  and  to  trees.  Yet  more 
characteristically  is  the  contrast  aesthetic, 
a  touch  of  gentility  in  the  one,  of  vulgar- 
ity in  the  other.  What  separates  one  from 
the  other  is  in  Professor  James's  words, 
which  though  written  with  other  reference 
seem  peculiarly  apt,  "  less  a  defect  than 
an  excess."  **  To  ignore,  to  disdain,  to 
consider,  to  overlook,  are  the  essence  of 
the  '  gentleman  '  ...  It  is  not  only  that 
the  'gentleman  ignores  considerations 
relative  to  conduct,  sordid  suspicions, 
fears,  calculations,  etc.,  which  the  vulga- 
rian is  fated  to  entertain ,-  it  is  that  he  is 


THE  GENTLEMAN  59 

silent  where  the  vulgarian  talks ;  that  he 
gives  nothing  but  results  where  the  vul- 
garian is  profuse  of  reasons ;  that  he  does 
not  explain  or  apologize ;  that  he  uses  one 
sentence  instead  of  twenty ;  .  .  .  All 
this  suppression  of  the  secondary  leaves 
the  field  clear,  —  for  higher  flights,  should 
they  choose  to  come.  But  even  if  they 
never  came,  what  thoughts  there  were 
would  still  manifest  the  aristocratic  type 
and  wear  the  well-bred  form."  The  con- 
trast persists:  aristocrat  and  philistine, 
gentleman  and  vulgarian,  Bromide  and 
Sulphite,  Athenian  and  Boeotian,  are  but 
different  portrait  titles  for  the  same  sit- 
ters, portrayed  by  different  artists,  with 
distinctive  expressions  and  properties. 

The  Utopian  atmosphere  has  the  pene- 
trative virtue  of  making  things  seem  what 
they  are.  Rank,  occupation,  service  be- 
come the' fitting  and  invariable  insignia 
of  quality  ;  virtue  has  an  outer  as  well  as 
an  inner  reward,  and  develops  withal  a 
prompt  recognition  of  its  prestige.  Doubt- 


6o      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

less  for  most  of  us  such  clarity  of  atmos- 
phere is  too  formidable ;  it  threatens  to 
dissolve  our  serviceable  illusions  along 
with  our  superstitions,  to  disclose  the 
little  tricks  of  our  make-up,  or  to  require 
us  to  justify  our  prejudices  and  predilec- 
tions. We  are  dwellers  in  mist-land  and 
have  become  used  to  it.  Unquestionably 
by  precept  and  manifesto  we  want  no 
enveloping  murkiness,  no  shielding  fog 
for  baseness  or  incompetency  to  find  se- 
curity ;  yet  in  less  public  moods  we  hold, 
in  George  Eliot's  estimable  phrase,  to 
the  inalienable  right  of  private  haziness. 
Though  we  cling  to  the  sheltering  imper- 
fections of  our  terrestrial  institutions,  we 
are  ready  to  follow,  as  tourists  provided 
with  a  limited  return-ticket,  so  accom- 
plished a  Utopian  guide  as  Mr.  H.  G. 
Wells.  In  his  sociological  construction, 
the  characteristic  institution  is  the  intel- 
lectual order  of  the  elect,  —  the  Samurai, 
—  a  voluntary  nobility  of  merit  united  in 
service  to  the  State,  an  aristocracy  of 


THE   UTOPIA  OF   MR.  WELLS  6i 

quality,  reminiscent  of  the  guardians  of 
Plato's  Republic.  His  more  evolved  state 
of  human  society  tolerates  no  arbitrary 
restriction  of  privilege,  only  the  natural 
cleavages  :  the  leaders  and  the  led  ;  the 
class  and  the  mass.  For  even  in  Utopia 
there  seems  no  device  to  accomplish  what 
has  been  attributed  to  the  ambitions  of 
the  managers  of  ostentatious  American 
hostelries :  to  provide  exclusiveness  for 
the  masses. 

By  quality  the  Utopians  appear  as 
Poietic,  Kinetic,  Dull  or  Base.  The  Poie- 
tics  form  "the  creative  class  of  mental 
individuality"  and  "agree  in  possessing 
imaginations  that  range  beyond  the 
known  and  accepted,  and  that  involve 
the  desire  to  bring  the  discoveries  made 
in  such  excursions  into  knowledge  and 
recognition.  ...  To  the  accumulated 
activities  of  the  Poietic  type  reacted  upon 
by  circumstances,  are  due  almost  all  the 
forms  assumed  by  human  thoughts  and 
feeling.  All  religious  ideas,  all  ideas  of 


62      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

what  is  good  or  beautiful,  entered  life 
through  the  poietic  inspirations  of  men. 
.  .  .  With  one  interest,  one  endowment, 
he  is  the  artist,  with  another  the  man  of  sci- 
ence, with  yet  another  of  affairs."  Clearly 
the  Poietic  is  a  high  order  of  Athenian 
with  an  inevitably  sulphitic  temperament ; 
and  what  is  characteristic  of  Utopia  and 
what  contrasts  it  with  Terrestria  is  the 
large  responsibilities  of  leadership  that 
devolve  upon  this  favored  class.  Yet  the 
affairs  of  any  society  demand  energy  and 
the  talent  of  management.  The  intellect- 
ual order  of  Samurai,  the  trained  leaders, 
includes  large  representations  of  the  ki- 
netic type  of  men.  These  in  turn  are  va- 
rious, are  assimilated  to  the  less  distinct- 
ive blends  of  poietic  men,  but  have  more 
restricted  imaginations  and  prefer  very 
wisely  to  limit  their  endeavors  to  the  ex- 
perienced and  accepted  ;  within  which 
limits  they  imagine  and  think  clearly, 
and  perform  cleverly  and  capably. 
The  Kinetics  form  the  upper  middle 


THE   UTOPIA  OF  MR.  WELLS  63 

class  of  Utopians,  a  large  and  valuable 
aggregate,  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the 
nation.  They  keep  the  world  going  by 
getting  things  done.  They  span  the  great 
arch  of  the  social  structure  from  medi- 
ocrity to  high  and  poietic  excellence. 
Every  realistic  Utopian  and  practically- 
minded  Terrestrian  recognises  their  high 
worth.  Their  real  place  in  the  real  mod- 
ern world  —  for  so  much  of  which  they 
are  responsible  —  must  not  be  judged 
by  the  pages  of  attention  they  secure 
in  imaginary  Utopias,  nor  in  essays  in 
defence  of  appreciation.  Let  them  find 
honor  in  their  description  as  the  normal 
exemplars  of  the  sterling  qualities  of  men. 
The  Dull  are  manifestly  inevitable ; 
there  would  be  no  hills  or  mountains 
but  for  the  lowlands  and  the  plains.  The 
great  mass  of  ordinary  work  to  be  done 
demands  a  great  mass  of  ordinary  work- 
ers to  do  it.  Utopian  writers  dismiss 
them  curtly  as  stupid,  incompetent,  for- 
mal, imitative.    "The  Dull  are  persons 


64     THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

of  altogether  inadequate  imagination, 
the  people  who  never  seem  to  learn 
thoroughly,  or  hear  distinctly  or  think 
clearly."  The  Base  put  their  qualities, 
which  may  be  high  as  well  as  low,  to 
perverted  use.  Like  the  poor  and  the 
dull,  we  always  have  them  with  us  to 
furnish  problems  to  society  and  sociolo- 
gists alike. 


VI 

With  a  vocabulary  thus  extended  and 
the  experience  —  albeit  in  imaginary  ex- 
ploits—  enriched,  we  may  return  earth- 
ward and  consider  human  limitations 
both  of  quality  and  circumstance,  in  the 
end  very  practical  worldly  considerations. 
To  each  of  us,  of  all  the  possible  careers 
— not  remotely  or  hy  pothetically  possible, 
but  reasonably  available  under  realizable 
conditions  —  one  alone  becomes  actual. 
Professor  James  writes  piquantly :  No  man 
can  be  "a  great  athlete,  and  make  a 
million  a  year,  be  a  wit,  bon-vivant,  and 
a  lady-killer,  as  well  as  a  philosopher ;  a 
philanthropist,  statesman,  warrior,  and 
African  explorer,  as  well  as  a  tone-poet 
and  saint"  ;  not  alone,  as  he  proceeds  to 
observe,  that  "the  millionaire's  work 
would  run  counter  to  the  saint's  "  ;  that 


66      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

"the  bon-vivant  and  the  philanthropist 
would  trip  each  other  up "  ;  that  "  the 
philosopher  and  lady-killer  could  not 
well  keep  house  in  the  same  tenement  of 
clay"  ;  but  still  more  fundamentally  that 
the  temperament,  the  endowment,  the 
primitive  fibre  of  human  quality  condi- 
tions the  outer  color  —  though  this  may 
be  dyed  with  or  reflect  the  pigments  of 
experience  —  and  the  design,  —  though 
this  is  variously  adapted  to  fashion  and 
circumstance,  —  but  as  well  the  immut- 
able texture  of  the  available  cloth  to  which 
perforce  we  must  cut  our  garments. 

The  incompatibilities  of  quality  lie  on 
the  surface  and  are  readily  discerned  ; 
their  deeper  analysis  is  involved  in  the 
same  fundamental  and  as  yet  unattain- 
able solutions  that  await  us  in  the  pro- 
mised land.  But  with  lesser  or  greater 
comprehension  we  note  that  the  steel,  if 
too  light,  becomes  weak ;  if  too  heavy, 
unwieldy ;  if  too  elastic,  it  bends.  The 
carrying  power  of  the  freighter  does  not 


THE  INCOMPATIBILITIES    67 

go  with  the  fleetness  of  the  ocean  grey- 
hound ;  pacer  and  dray-horse  are  bred 
quite  differently.  We  have  been  reminded 
that  philosophers  are  likely  to  possess 
one  set  of  qualities  and  lady-killers 
another.  But  let  us  be  very  careful  not 
to  exaggerate  these  incompatibilities.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  find  philosophers 
properly  susceptible  to  feminine  esteem, 
nor  beaux  with  a  taste  for  philosophy. 
We  think  at  once  of  the  camel  contem- 
plating the  eye  of  the  needle  as  a  possible 
archway,  and  the  rich  man  before  the 
gates  of  paradise.  But  the  camel,  if  we 
may  trust  Kipling,  is  a  most  awful  ex- 
ample of  combined  incongruities:  "he's 
a  devil,  and  a  ostrich,  and  a  orphan-child 
in  one"  ;  and  the  rich  man  is  subject  to 
slander  —  and  investigation.  The  liner, 
though  "she's  a  lady,"  carries  quite  a 
cargo  ;  and  of  the  many  cargo  boats  that 
ply  the  charted  seas,  the  ones  of  largest 
burden  are  not  the  slowest. 

The  incompatibility  of  qualities  must 


68      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

be  carefully  reckoned  with.  It  appears 
practically  in  the  adjustment  or  malad- 
justment of  quality  to  service,  and  con- 
versely in  the  wise  adjustments  of  the 
demands  of  positions  and  institutions  to 
the  compatibilities  nurtured  within  our 
human  psychology.  Men  may  be  versa- 
tile in  this  respect  or  specialists  in  that, 
by  nature  or  by  circumstance.  The  mas- 
tery that  is  denied  to  jacks-of-all-trades 
may  be  lacking  through  fault  of  training 
or  through  limitation  of  endowment.  The 
individual  aspects  of  the  problem  must 
seek  illumination  in  the  survey  at  closer 
range,  and  thus  form  the  theme  of  an- 
other story.  Yet  the  purpose  sought  is 
clear:  to  determine  early  for  the  youthful 
career  in  what  class  or  harness  the  pro- 
mising colt  is  likely  to  trot.  To  be  a  square 
peg  in  a  round  hole  is  about  as  unfortun- 
ate for  the  hole  as  for  the  peg.  The  ad- 
justment, I  shall  presently  contend,  must 
be  reciprocal ;  careers  are  comprom- 
ises between  qualities  and  circumstances. 


FRAILTIES   OF   GENIUS      69 

Through  social  authority  the  shaping  of 
the  holes  follows  the  somewhat  conven- 
tional prescriptions  of  human  institutions; 
the  elasticity  of  the  pegs  is  limited  by 
natural  patterns.  The  two  have  evolved 
together ;  the  determination  which  shall 
be  the  qualities  fittest  to  survive  is  partly 
in  our  own  communal  hands  ;  and  in  this 
responsibility  lies  my  text. 

Practically  regarded,  the  urgent  de- 
sideratum, the  vital  need,  is  the  diffusion 
of  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  poietic 
qualities,  of  "high  and  low  degree ;  and 
along  with  it  a  generous  realization  that 
sound  originality  is  compatible  with  a 
very  large  efficiency.  The  chroniclers  of 
the  small  talk  of  the  great  dwell  solemnly 
upon  the  idiosyncrasies  of  genius.  They 
find  something  mystically  significant  or 
damnatory  in  the  report  that  Schiller  de- 
rived inspiration  from  the  odor  of  decay- 
ing apples  ;  or  that  Wagner  loved  to  pose 
in  fancy  dress.  People  who  know  little 
of  Kant  think  of  him  as  an  absent-minded 


70     THE  QUALITIES   OF  MEN 

beggar  who  lost  the  thread  of  his  dis- 
course when  the  button  on  a  student's 
coat  —  his  indispensable  fixation  point 
—  lost  its  retaining  thread  ;  and  those 
similarly  conversant  with  the  personality 
of  Whistler  think  of  him  as  a  testy  indi- 
vidual proud  of  a  white  lock  in  his  shaggy 
hair.  They  know  of  Coleridge,  as  of  a 
host  of  his  kind,  as  those  who  were  as 
babes  in  the  woods  in  practical  afiairs  ; 
and  they  are  convinced  upon  slight  evi- 
dence that  artists  are  a  Bohemian  and 
undependable  lot ;  and  that  presumably 
men  with  unusual  ideas  pay  for  the  privi- 
lege by  a  lack  of  common  ones.  The  ten- 
dency to  flaw  in  delicately  cast  natures 
is  part  of  the  hazard  for  the  higher  qual- 
ity. The  bow,  to  carry  the  arrow  farthest, 
must  be  stretched  to  near  the  breaking 
point.  It  may  be  admitted  for  earthly 
"  originals,"  as  Mr.  Wells  does  for  Uto- 
pians, "  that  the  very  definition  of  a  poie- 
tic  class  involves  a  certain  abnormality  " ; 
that  the  most  vigorous  individuals  of  the 


HAZARD  OF   HIGH   QUALITY  71 

kinetic  class  "  are  the  most  teachable  peo- 
ple in  the  world,  and  they  are  generally 
more  moral  and  more  trustworthy  than 
the  poietic  types.  They  live,  —  while  the 
Poietics  are  always  something  of  experi- 
mentalists with  life."  Yet  the  admission 
should  not  unduly  bias  the  sober  social 
judgment  against  original  or  unconven- 
tional contributors  to  the  values  of  life. 
There  is  ample  reasonable  ground  be- 
tween the  self-satisfied  arrogant  scorn  of 
uncommon  gifts  and  the  hysterical  hero- 
worship  of  posing  Bohemianism.  Doubt- 
less originality  with  poise  is  better  than 
originality  without  it ;  yet  the  quality  is 
so  precious  that  we  mortals  should  be 
grateful  to  accept  it  in  any  guise  and  on 
any  terms  the  gods  choose  to  impose. 
A  patient  sympathy  with  its  methods, 
even  its  vagaries,  is  the  only  wise,  the 
only  civilized  course.  There  is  a  note  of 
sadness  in  the  suspicion  of  so  evenly 
tempered  a  Poietic  as  Mr.  Howells,  that 
by  the  great  mass  of  Americans  the  poet 


72      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

is  regarded  as  "  perhaps  a  little  off,  a  lit- 
tle funny,  a  little  soft "  ;  and  that  Mr. 
Wells  should  comment :  "  Fools  make 
researches  and  wise  men  exploit  them  — 
that  is  our  earthly  way  of  dealing  with 
the  subject,  and  we  thank  Heaven  for 
an  assumed  abundance  of  financially  im- 
potent and  sufficiently  ingenious  fools." 
Possibly  Mr.  Wendell  suggests  a  true 
reason  for  this  distorted  view  of  things  : 
"  The  faults  of  the  upper  classes,  partly 
by  reason  of  their  very  emergence,  are 
often  more  conspicuous  than  the  virtues  ; 
and  the  virtues  of  the  lower  classes,  partly 
by  reason  of  their  submergence,  often 
seem  more  instantly  salient  than  their 
faults.  The  bottom  of  things  above  you 
is  what  meets  the  eye,  whoever  or  wher- 
ever you  are,  and  the  top  of  things 
below." 

Remembering  as  constantly  as  we  care 
to,  the  frailty  of  genius  and  pronounced 
talent,  it  behooves  us  equally  to  remem- 
ber the  much  larger  class  of  constructive 


HAZARD   OF   HIGH   QUALITY  73 

intellects,  free  for  the  most  part  from  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  unorganizable  genius, 
who  present  in  the  blend  of  their  quali- 
ties a  more  than  ordinary  measure  of 
sound  judgment,  of  wise  management, 
of  sustaining  energy.  Versatility  is  not 
so  rare  as  this  age  of  specialism  is  prone 
to  consider  it ;  the  muses  and  graces  and 
virtues  form  quite  a  goodly  company. 
The  poietics  are  born  into  the  families 
of  men  somewhat  like  the  rest  of  us,  and 
are  not  as  a  rule  so  niggardly  treated  by 
the  dispensers  of  qualities  as  to  leave 
them  with  one  small  unsupported  talent. 
They  are  willing  to  live  and  be  judged 
as  men  among  men.  It  is,  moreover,  well 
to  remember  that  the  distrust  in  question, 
the  disparagement  and  weak  encourage- 
ment of  the  poietic  career  may  lie  in  the 
juries  and  judges  and  in  the  institutions 
which  these  represent,  rather  than  in  the 
delinquencies  of  the  defendant. 

It  is  instructive  to  recall  that  older  so- 
cial systems,   regarded  by  our  modern 


74      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

standards  as  inherently  unsound,  yet  in 
the  saving  graces  of  their  raisott  d'etre 
gave  encouragement  to  quaUties  and  to 
the  arts  that  arise  from  them,  that  now 
languish  or  are  overpowered  by  lustier 
contestants  for  the  energies  and  the  de- 
votions of  men ;  that  the  glories  of  ca- 
thedrals, the  splendor  of  castles  and 
town-halls,  the  magnificent  appeal  of  the 
master's  canvas  and  the  sculptor's  mar- 
ble, and  the  uniform  merit  and  sympa- 
thetic workmanship  of  minor  craftsmen 
organized  into  powerful  guilds,  —  that 
these  and  the  institutions  of  the  day,  the 
ordering  of  life  and  of  its  appreciations, 
all  stood  in  some  vital  relation  to  the 
feudal  system,  whose  privileges  and 
inequalities  we  are  too  prone  to  empha- 
size, whose  achievements  to  value  too 
slightly. 

And  again  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind 
that  other  commonwealths,  with  no  less  a 
modern  spirit  than  our  own,  have  found 
worthier  honor  for  their  worthier  men. 


OTHER  CIVILIZATIONS       75 

have  shown  a  wiser  appreciation  of  the 
higher  quality  than  have  we. 

In  so  far  as  the  deficient  appreciation 
of  poietic  qualities  is  indeed  a  national 
trait,  it  unquestionably  has  a  reason  in 
national  conditions,  —  conditions  which 
placed  a  special  premium  upon  and  per- 
emptorily demanded  antagonistic  quali- 
ties. The  insistent  demands  of  new 
possessions,  the  vast  and  rapid  trans- 
formations of  new  conditions,  have  em- 
phasized kinetic  qualities  on  a  wholly 
unprecedented  scale,  and  to  the  inevita- 
ble disparagement  of  every  other  quality 
or  even  virtue.  Life  has  been  lived  so 
breathlessly  that  the  contemplation  has 
been  reduced  to  mere  glimpses  ;  we  have 
had  to  do  our  reading  as  we  ran,  and  for- 
sake the  privilege  of  seeing  life  steadily 
and  seeing  it  whole.  But  much  of  this 
apology  for  the  unwisdom  and  the  rash- 
ness of  our  esteems  has  outlived  its  war- 
rant, outlived  it  with  the  receding  of  the 
frontier.  Or  to  speak  more  critically,  the 


76      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

exaltation  of  more  common-place,  close- 
viewed,  calculating  qualities  settled  upon 
the  inheritors  and  later  occupants  of  the 
possessed  land.  Frontierdom  possessed 
a  romantic  admiration  of  boldness,  origi- 
nality, individuality ;  it  enjoyed  an  out- 
look, hewed  its  own  way,  permitted 
itself  the  luxuries  as  well  as  bore  the 
hardships  of  freedom  and  adventure. 
The  literature  of  this  realm  overflows 
with  admiration  of  the  poietic  qualities  — 
and  that  at  times  with  a  superb  disdain 
of  constraining  proprieties —- from  Bret 
Harte  to  The  Virginian.  It  is  the  com- 
placent bourgeoisie  of  the  plains  and  the 
micropolis,  and  then  the  purse-proud 
managerial  next  generation  of  the  me- 
tropolis—  and  their  following  politically 
from  henchman  to  boss,  their  following 
industrially  from  clerk  to  the  captains  or 
despots  of  industry  ;  it  is  with  them  that 
the  one-sided  exaltation  of  narrow  quality 
found  its  pernicious  foothold. 

Yet  looking  forward  not  backward,  it 


COMPLACENT   PROSPERITY   77 

may  be  safely  maintained  that  the  intel- 
lectual conditions  for  our  advance  are 
for  the  most  part  equalized  with  those 
of  the  liberal  cultures  in  the  old  world. 
The  imminent  danger,  the  internal  yel- 
low peril,  is  that  the  appreciations  we 
have  thus  developed  and  trusted,  the  re- 
wards we  have  encouraged  or  permitted 
under  stress  and  strain  of  circumstance, 
the  shallow  glorification  of  the  immedi- 
ately practical,  will  have  so  warped  our 
instinctive  sensibilities  and  our  acquired 
judging  powers  as  to  impede  seriously 
the  restoration  of  a  more  catholic,  indeed 
a  more  spiritual  perspective,  now  that 
the  clearing  of  the  promised  land  invites 
possession  full,  free,  secure.  The  motto 
borne  by  the  great  kinetic  metropolis, 
—  the  determination  of  Chicago's  "I 
WILL,"  —  at  one  time  sufficient  and  un- 
questioned, is  to' a  later  generation  but  a 
preamble  to  the  naming  of  the  purpose 
to  which  the  human  will-power  is  to  be 
applied.   Whatever  that  may  be,  it  in- 


78      THE   QUALITIES   OF  MEN 

volves,  and  particularly  so  amid  the  un- 
charted and  complex  streams  of  modern 
life,  the  greatest  utilization,  the  most 
sympathetic  appreciation,  as  well  as  the 
devoted  support  of  its  poietic  men  :  men 
who  can  plan,  and  foresee,  and  are  not 
afraid  to  dream  ;  men  moved  by  princi- 
ple as  well  as  by  practice  ;  men  cherish- 
ing their  individuality,  not  cowed  by 
convention  nor  awed  by  power ;  men  in 
whom  the  very  nobility  and  worth  of 
their  theories  enables  them  to  meet  ade- 
quately the  conditions  that  confront  them. 


VII 

I  FIND  yet  a  word  to  be  said  in 
behalf  of  the  poietic  ingredients  in  the 
composite  qualities  of  more  than  ordi- 
nary though  less  than  extraordinary  men 
and  women,  and  their  encouragement 
during  the  poietically  favored  period  of 
growth.  We  know  the  situation  famil- 
iarly from  its  favorite  selection  for  the 
theme  of  story,  drama,  or  novel.  The 
youth  —  or,  if  you  prefer,  the  maiden  —  of 
strange  parts  and  vague  longing,  throb- 
bing with  imaginative  romancing,  finds 
little  sympathy  with  family  or  friends,  or 
appreciation  by  the  matter-of-fact  people 
of  town  or  village.  Less  available  and 
at  times  less  tractable  than  his  brethren, 
given  to  dreams  and  their  interpretation, 
this  modern  Joseph,  in  the  usual  setting, 
neither  reaches  high  place  to  the  discom- 


8o      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

fiture  of  his  brethren,  nor  on  the  other 
hand  is  he  cast  into  the  pit.  He  is  com- 
passionately looked  upon  as  the  weaker 
vessel,  a  sort  of  jug  without  a  handle, 
to  be  pitied,  endured,  but  not  encour- 
aged by  advances,  which  quite  possibly 
he  would  resent.  Yet  occasionally  some 
Pharaoh,  not  perplexed  or  grief-stricken 
but  deep-sighted,  or  some  amiable  Me- 
caenas  of  the  novelist's  creation,  or  bet- 
ter still  in  real  life,  the  saving  insight  of 
the  small  minority,  eases  the  path  of  the 
poietic  youth,  and  with  favoring  fortune 
eventually  seats  him  among  the  hon- 
ored. 

It  is  part  of  the  sports  of  the  fates 
that  here,  there,  and  elsewhere,  they  de- 
posit a  sulphitic  offspring  amid  a  family 
brood  of  sturdy  and  unsuspecting  bro- 
mides. In  fiction  retributive  justice  is 
common,  possibly  because  the  writers 
thereof,  themselves  touched  with  the 
poietic  strain,  use  the  opportunity  to  in- 
dulge  their  convictions.    Likewise   the 


APPRECIATION   OF  TALENT    8i 

stage  poietic,  though  not  a  matinee  idol, 
makes  a  general  and  genuine  appeal  for 
the  common  reason,  that  the  novel-read- 
ing and  the  play-going  moods,  in  their 
recoil  from  the  routine  of  a  work-a-day 
world,  are  sympathetic  with  the  imagina- 
tive play  of  poetic  justice.  But  the  actual 
shapers  of  fate,  the  judges  on  and  off  the 
bench,  and  the  juries  of  the  people,  —  the 
playgoers  in  their  vocational  and  social 
influence  —  and,  most  of  all,  the  spirit  of 
the  institutions  which  they  have  called 
into  being  and  which  they  support : 
these  are  curiously  unappreciative  of 
the  worth,  the  indispensable  flame  of 
poietic  activity  —  a  steady  glow  or  a  fit- 
ful spark  —  that  illuminates  every  pro- 
gressive calling  and  career. 

To  all  this  there  attaches  a  lesson  that 
may  be  plainly  put :  that  the  poietic 
callings  demand  favoring  conditions  of 
birth,  nourishment  and  maturity ;  that  to 
facilitate  the  growth  of  such  conditions 
involves  the  ability  to  appreciate  them  ; 


82      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

that  the  most  satisfactory  mode  of  se- 
curing alike  the  inventive  quality  and 
its  appreciation  is  that  of  selection, 
upon  the  basis  of  native  sensibility  ma- 
tured by  cultivation  ;  that  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  interests  of  the  nation, 
equally  with  its  natural  resources  of  for- 
est, mine,  and  stream,  must  be  conserved 
and  fostered  ;  that  in  each  realm  must 
the  interests  be  intrusted  authoritatively 
to  those  by  quality  and  fitness  endowed 
to  guide  them.  The  gospel  has  as  per- 
tinent an  application  in  academic  as  in 
political  and  commercial  circles  ;  it  is 
because  the  institutions  of  the  higher 
education  may  be  looked  upon  as  most 
complex  instruments  of  selection  of 
the  higher  qualities,  that  the  slightest 
shortcoming  of  motive  or  wisdom  in  the 
guidance  thereof  is  fraught  with  the  most 
serious  consequences.  For  by  whatever 
reckoning  of  their  worth,  the  Colleges 
and  Universities  of  the  land  radiate  the 
largest  influence  and  set  the  most  influ- 


COLLEGE   LIFE  83 

ential  standards  for  the  most  highly  se- 
lected youth  of  the  land. 

The  purpose  of  a  college  education  is 
by  the  inspiration  of  its  environment  to 
cultivate  in  the  fittest,  the  most  uplifting 
appraisal  of  the  qualities  of  men.  In  that 
formative  period,  the  susceptibility  to  just 
those  influences  that  grow  out  of  sensibil- 
ities and  confer  the  poietic  leadership,  is 
at  its  ripest.  The  graduate,  if  the  years 
have  brought  wisdom,  differs  most  from 
the  matriculate  in  that  he  has  imbibed 
or  achieved  a  wholly  revised  esteem  of 
qualities.  To  direct  that  revision  to  a 
worthy  and  enduring  consummation  is 
the  whole  business  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion ;  though  the  means  it  creates  and 
utilizes  for  the  purpose  engage  a  many- 
sided  profession. 

The  unwholesome  emphasis  of  boyish 
and  youthful  qualities  fostered  by  the 
esprit-de-corps  of  the  incidental  diver- 
sions of  college  life,  swollen  by  pamper- 
ing favor  and  popularity  to  overshadow 


84      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

the  sterner  devotion  which  they  are  de- 
signed to  reHeve,  —  this  internal  dan- 
ger has  properly  engaged  the  concern 
of  parents  and  educators  alike.  But 
this  hypertrophy  of  a  serviceable  func- 
tion is  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  symptom 
of  a  more  extended  malady,  —  one  that 
has  invaded  many  of  the  vital  tissues 
of  the  academic  organism.  The  weak 
insistence  on  the  part  of  those  intrusted 
with  the  interests  of  academic  leadership, 
upon  the  sound,  stern,  scholarly,  and 
spiritual  appraisal  of  human  quality,  is 
the  critical  fault ;  though  this  in  turn 
may  be  referred  to  the  complacent  sur- 
render of  worthier  purposes  to  the  dem- 
ocratic insistence  of  practical  demands, 
born  of  an  impatient  short-sightedness 
and  an  undisciplined  insensibility.  If  one 
order  of  esteem  of  quality  is  weakened, 
another  will  inevitably  take  its  place. 
The  withdrawal  of  leadership  from  one 
allegiance  transfers  it  to  another.  If  edu- 
cators shape  their  esteems  to  the  demands 


COLLEGE   LIFE  85 

of  those  whose  appraisals  they  are  to 
fashion,  what  more  natural  than  that  the 
transferred  leadership  will  follow  its  own 
preferences  and  grow  by  what  it  feeds 
upon!  Nowhere  is  the  tyranny  of  too 
conventional  standards,  the  weak  esteem 
of  poietic  originality,  the  over-emphasis 
of  practical  and  narrow  utility,  a  greater 
and  a  sadder  misfortune  than  in  the  form- 
ative years  of  college  life.  Universities, 
if  they  realize  their  functions,  will  con- 
tinue to  regard  themselves  as  citadels  of 
resistance,  not  remote  from  the  demands 
of  a  busy  competitive  life,  but  defending 
it  against  enemies  from  within  as  well 
as  invaders  from  without ;  protecting  it 
most  of  all  by  the  higher  esteem  of  the 
qualities  of  men  which  it  cultivates,  from 
the  most  serious  internal  peril,  the  shal- 
low and  misguided  award  of  popularity 
and  esteem  to  the  qualities  glorified  in 
the  marts  and  highways,  where  motives 
and  measures  too  readily  forsake  their 
finer  quality.  Because  of  the  inevitable 


86      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

life-long  exposure  to  the  one  order  of 
esteem,  the  resistive  value  exercised  by 
the  conservators  of  the  other  is  of  unique 
significance.  Disloyalty  within  the  aca- 
demic citadel  becomes  of  profound  con- 
sequence for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
entire  community. 


VIII 

Yet  wherever  human  quality  is  worth- 
ily cherished  —  and  no  lantern  of  Dioge- 
nes is  needed  to  find  it  where  men 
most  do  congregate  —  the  quality  of 
leadership  and  the  loyalty  to  the  higher 
esteem  shines  forth  as  brilliantly  as  the 
atmosphere  permits,  and  attracts  a  fol- 
lowing. Such  social  community  of  pur- 
pose follows  upon  the  sharing  of  similar 
ideals,  without  which  the  esteem  of  qual- 
ity would  be  dissipated  and  lost.  As 
we  proceed  in  analysis  or  insight  we 
appreciate  the  commanding  influence 
of  the  collective  social  approval  and 
ideal ;  and  first  of  the  latter.  Life,  as 
practice  and  precept  alike  inculcate,  is 
character  in  action  ;  and  all  action  must 
be  shaped  to  condition.  In  part  are 
we  masters  of  our  fate,  in  part  are  we 


88      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

creatures  of  circumstance.  The  mastery 
is  expressed  in  the  imperative  of  the 
ideals  under  whose  standards  we  are  en- 
listed ;  for  it  is  our  peculiarly  human 
privilege,  and  our  highest,  to  direct  con- 
duct through  ideals.  In  that  aspect 
ideals  acquire  a  very  real  and  practical 
bearing.  They  serve  to  determine  in 
what  esteem  this  quality  or  that  shall  be 
held,  and  equally  what  achievements 
shall  occupy  the  foreground  of  endeavor ; 
making  one  age  dominantly  artistic,  an- 
other religious,  one  political  and  another 
commercial,  one  complacent  and  an- 
other revolutionary.  Yet  before  proceed- 
ing, it  is  well  in  these  pragmatic  days 
not  to  ignore  the  fact  that  indirectly  the 
place  of  ideals  in  shaping  human  events 
has  been  much  questioned.  It  has  been 
held  that  outward  circumstance  directs 
activity  and  that  the  purposes  thus  in- 
dicated, the  satisfactions  brought  about 
by  so  much  of  their  accomplishment  as 
falls  to  one  generation,  in  turn  direct  the 


THE  PRAGMATIC  POSITION    89 

thoughts  of  another  to  the  desirability  of 
the  extension  of  such  achievement ;  to 
which  again  by  this  process  some  sort 
of  ideal  is  attached,  mainly  to  reinforce 
what  is  really  practiced  for  other  reasons. 
With  the  pertinence  of  the  pragmatic 
position  within  its  own  field,  I  should  be 
not  at  all  concerned,  did  not  its  temper 
encourage  a  jaunty  leap  from  theory  to 
practice  with  light  unconcern.  I  have  no 
immediate   quarrel  with   the  view  that 
proclaims  —  so  far  as  pragmatism  does 
—  that  the  thoughtless  and  the  thought- 
ful alike  may  believe  what  they  choose, 
naturally  at  their  own  risk  ;  that  up  to  a 
certain  point  truth  is  sanctioned  by  its 
practical  utility,  —  proving  in  the  long 
run  and  often  in  the  short  jump  its  own 
corrective, — and  that  beyond  this  point 
it  is  a  landscape  to  be  selected,  contem- 
plated  and   interpreted    to   satisfy   our 
needs.  The  position  is  secure  so  long  as 
the  pragmatist  contemplates  and  does  not 
explore.    But  in  the  loftier   excursions, 


90     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

where  locomotion  is  difficult  and  the 
foothold  uncertain,  he  becomes  to  me  a 
questionable  guide.  Ideals,  I  admit,  shed 
a  fitful  gleam  ;  but  they  momentarily  dis- 
pel the  despair  of  utter  gloom  and  are 
wonderfully  encouraging.  I  am  inclined  to 
agree  with  Mr.  Chesterton,  though  I  cite 
him  with  reluctance  because  of  his  own 
incessant  quasi-pragmatic  town-cry  that 
nothing  is  true  but  what  sounds  untrue : 
"  Pragmatism  is  a  matter  of  human 
needs;  and  one  of  the  first  of  human 
needs  is  to  be  something  more  than  a 
pragmatist."  I  am  keenly  aware  of  the 
dis-service  of  ideals,  of  the  part  they 
have  played  in  the  history  of  fanaticism, 
of  intolerance,  of  pseudo-science,  as  well 
as  of  their  service  in  progress  and  re- 
form. I  appreciate  more  practically  how 
readily  in  lesser  concerns  an  ideal,  like  a 
conscience,  may  become  a  troublesome 
burden.  Ideals  are  often  made  to  work 
overtime  and  unseasonably  ;  and  ideals 
unwisely  worn  often  restrict  rather  than 


EFFICIENCY   OF   IDEALS      91 

illuminate  the  outlook.  But  to  achieve  a 
worthy  or  serviceable  foothold  in  this 
tumultuous  and  competitive  world  of 
ours,  some  decided  singleness  of  purpose 
and  some  supporting  ideals  are  alike  in- 
dispensable. When  thus  assimilated  by  a 
liberal  mind,  ideals  become  not  a  burden 
to  be  borne,  but  part  of  the  strength 
that  carries.  And  equally  should  it  be 
conceded  that  the  pragmatic  shaping  of 
ideals  by  circumstance  is  real  and  vital ; 
and  that  the  actual  incentive  to  conduct 
and  the  formulated  grounds  of  conduct 
may  differ  appreciably.  Though  ready 
to  admit  that  reasons  may  mislead  and 
the  motives  for  action  remain  hidden,  I 
cannot  at  bottom  question  the  real  effi- 
ciency of  ideals  as  motive  forces:  that 
ideals  shape  human  ends,  rough-hew 
them  as  experience  will.  Indeed  in  this 
larger  sense  they  grow  in  the  historical 
and  the  actual  perspective  until  they 
take  the  form  of  great  movements  of 
thought,  massive  inspirations  of  action. 


92      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

Though  attached  to  experience  and  never 
effective  when  detached  therefrom, 
though  subject  to  vagary,  they  are  vital 
sources  of  energy.  They  interpret  experi- 
ence ;  condition  further  belief  and  ac- 
tion ;  determine  sympathies,  allegiances, 
affiliations,  careers,  and  even  expendi- 
tures and  votes ;  and  shape,  all  unwit- 
tingly and  imperceptibly,  the  grosser  and 
the  finer  contours  of  our  lives.  The 
choice  is  not  between  having  ideals  and 
dispensing  with  them,  but  only  towards 
which  set  of  ideals  our  allegiance  shall 
extend,  with  what  degree  of  loyalty  or 
enthusiasm  one  and  another  shall  be 
cherished. 

And  here  once  more  we  come  upon  the 
great  divide,  the  parting  of  the  waters  to 
east  and  west,  though  fed  by  a  common 
moisture  from  cloud  and  hillside.  We 
find  the  great  enduring  forces  of  gravi- 
tation that  keep  men  and  institutions  in 
their  orbit,  and  opposed  thereto  the  finer 
energies  acting  centripetally,  that  pre- 


CONVENTION  93 

vent  history  from  repeating  itself  by 
shifting  as  well  as  by  increasing  the  pur- 
poses of  men.  The  one  is  definitely  name- 
able,  is  looking  securely  backward,  hold- 
ing fast  to  that  which  is  seemingly  true  ; 
the  other  is  various,  experimental,  tenta- 
tively groping,  looking  forward  and  out- 
ward, proving  all  promising  things.  The 
former  is  convention,  perhaps  not  in  it- 
self an  ideal,  but  modifying  all  realizable 
ideals,  and  by  such  condition  giving  rise 
to  the  recurrent  problems  of  compromise ; 
the  latter  is  a  progressive,  it  may  be  a  pro- 
phetic ideal  reached  through  invention, 
hypothesis,  imagination,  vision,  faith, 
and  enlisting  in  its  campaign  the  bud- 
ding and  the  full-blossomed  enthusi- 
asms of  men.  Conservative  and  liberal, 
stand-patter  and  radical,  orthodox  and 
heterodox,  faithful  and  heretic,  catholic 
and  protestant ;  contrast  them  as  we  may, 
— these  stand  to  us  as  tendencies,  tem- 
peramental predilections  in  some  part, 
yet  potent  to  shape  philosophies  and  to 


94      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

leave  as  their  crystallized  products,  intel- 
lectual, moral,  aesthetic,  religious,  social, 
and  political  ideals. 

The  history  of  convention  would  be 
the  most  encyclopedic  of  human  narra- 
tives ;  the  balancing  of  its  books  not 
lightly  to  be  contemplated  by  any  lesser 
warrant  than  the  combined  qualities  of 
Solomon,  Job,  and  Isaiah.  But  to  read 
the  signs  of  the  times  as  they  point  to 
an  actual  situation,  to  reach  some  opin- 
ion of  its  trend,  and  to  throw  one's  influ- 
ence on  one  side  of  the  balance  or  the 
other,  —  this  is  within  the  privilege  of  all. 
Convention  is  said  to  be  the  fly-wheel 
society ;  and  the  simile  is  so  far  apt, 
that  at  all  events  a  fly-wheel  is  about 
the  least  suitable  object  to  make  an  idol 
of  that  could  be  mentioned.  Far  from 
being  a  safe  subject  for  worship,  it  re- 
presents something  of  a  force  to  be  re- 
sisted. In  the  minor  offices  of  life  it  may 
be  viewed  with  complacency,  even  with 
gratitude  ;  for  it  is  far  more  important  to 


CONVENTION  95 

get  certain  things  settled  than  to  trouble 
minutely  as  to  the  last  detail  of  correct- 
ness of  their  settlement.  I  am  content 
that  convention  has  determined  in  what 
cut  of  clothes  I  shall  dine  or  lecture,  and 
have  but  a  modest  interest  in  the  ra- 
tionale thereof,  —  and  this  though  I 
should  not  choose  the  garb  for  portrait 
or  bust.  I  am  not  content  exactly,  but 
am  protestingly  resigned  to  a  very  large 
range  of  other  conventions,  which  I 
shall  with  pleasure  denounce  when  occa- 
sion is  favorable,  and  otherwise  decently 
observe.  And  what  is  indefinitely  more 
important,  I  avail  myself  of  and  submit 
to  convention  in  the  professional  and  all 
public  attitudes  of  my  work.  For  every 
reasonable  man  whose  work  is  in  the 
world  must  work  through  worldly  insti- 
tutions. He  must  become  skillful,  and 
should  enjoy  becoming  so,  in  adjusting 
principle  to  practice,  in  utilizing  the 
great  conventions  of  civilization. 

The  danger  and  the  protest  come  and 


96      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

come  emphatically,  when  convention  too 
dominatingly,  too  interferingly  tampers 
with  ideals ;  and  this  all-inclusive  danger 
is  concisely  set  forth  in  the  masterly 
handling  of  the  problems  of  "Compro- 
mise "  by  Mr.  John  Morley  (now  Lord 
Morley).  "We  do  not  find  out  until  too 
late,"  he  admonishes,  "that  the  intellect, 
too,  at  least  where  it  is  capable  of  being 
exercised  on  the  higher  objects,  has  its 
sensitiveness.  It  loses  its  color  and  po- 
tency and  finer  fragrance  in  an  atmo- 
sphere of  mean  purpose  and  low  con- 
ception of  the  sacredness  of  fact  and 
reality."  Admittedly,  the  great  practical 
problem  to  be  solved  anew  by  each  peo- 
ple, by  each  generation,  by  each  individ- 
ual, and  almost  for  each  situation,  is 
this  of  reaching  a  working  and  efficient 
compromise  between  ideals  and  such 
modes  of  their  partial  realization  as  a  due 
regard  for  convention,  and  a  proper  ap- 
praisal of  the  status  quo  make  available. 
The  tendency  of  men  and  peoples  to 


CONVENTION  97 

lean  upon  principle  to  guide  practice,  or 
upon  practice  to  yield  its  own  wisdom,  is 
itself  a  subtle  issue  of  temperament,  rather 
than  logically  determined.  Emerson  said 
of  the  English :  "  They  are  impious  in 
their  skepticism  of  a  theory,  but  kiss  the 
dust  before  a  fact."  Lord  Morley  accuses 
his  countrymen  of  the  same  "profound 
distrust  of  all  general  principles,"  and 
of  the  "  most  pertinacious  measurement 
of  philosophic  truths  by  political  tests." 
Macaulay  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
he  would  not  lift  a  hand  to  get  rid  of  an 
anomaly  that  was  not  also  a  grievance. 
This  is  temperamental  pragmatism  with 
indulgence.  Yet  it  saves  from  excess,  and 
makes  for  a  stolid  sanity.  It  is  well 
marked,  though  altered,  in  the  devotees 
of  Yankee  shrewdness,  given  to  bombas- 
tic proclamations,  mushroom  platforms, 
and  sophomoric  debates,  yet  keenly  re- 
sponsive to  ballots  and  box-receipts  and 
returns ;  upholding  the  unalterable  sov- 
ereignty  of   constitutional    policy,   and 


98      THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

questioning  its  pertinency  as  between 
friends.  A  casual  cosmopolitan  observer 
sets  down  both  Frenchmen  and  Ameri- 
cans as  logical.  In  the  pursuit  of  princi- 
ples both  go  to  the  edge  of  a  precipice  ; 
the  Frenchman  consistently  jumps  off ; 
the  American  reflectively  retraces  his 
steps.  For  the  moment  the  fitness  to  oc- 
casion of  neither  policy  is  at  stake.  At 
bottom  the  suspicion  of  principles  that 
have  no  root  in  experience  is  sound, 
whether  expressed  in  the  impropriety  of 
preaching  without  practicing,  or  in  a  per- 
sonal distaste  for  the  "  thin,  sour  wine  of 
theory,"  or  in  the  more  critical  language 
of  philosophy.  But  the  danger  of  dealing 
only  with  grievances  and  not  with  an- 
omalies is  that  the  acclimatization  to  the 
atmosphere  of  unreason  in  which  the  one 
thrives,  lessens  the  sensitiveness  to  the 
other.  Once  more  it  is  a  question  of  per- 
spective and  occasions,  of  considering 
conditions  and  theories  appropriately. 
Yet  it  is  but  natural  that  the  arts  of  life 


PROBLEMS  OF  COMPROMISE   99 

that  depend  upon  constant  compromise 
and  the  skillful  pursuit  of  expediency- 
tend  to  dominate  and  direct  the  ideals 
and  energies  of  men.  Of  these  the  most 
widely  appealing  and  persuasive  is  the 
art,  or  shall  1  say,  the  game  of  politics ; 
the  attitude  of  mind  resulting  from  a  too 
narrow  absorption  in  such  concerns  may 
be  called  the  political  temper.  Properly 
subordinated  and  coordinated  with  other 
interests  and  other  aspects  of  current 
problems,  the  spirit  is  legitimate,  helpful. 
But  politics  must  not  be  held  as  all,  and 
statesmanship  as  nought.  The  dominant 
fallacy  of  the  day  and  generation,  for 
which  Lord  Morley's  classic  essay  is  the 
complete  refutal,  the  political  idol  of  the 
market-place,  in  Bacon's  phrase,  is  the 
short-sighted  confusion  between  the  sanc- 
tions of  principle  and  the  sanctions  of 
practice.  We  carry  modes  of  conduct 
applicable  to  the  one  most  disastrously 
into  the  domain  of  the  other,  and  in  such 
misunderstanding   "suppose  that  there 


loo    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

are  the  same  grounds  why  we  should  in 
our  own  minds  acquiesce  in  second  best 
opinions ;  why  we  should  mix  a  little 
alloy  of  conventional  expression  with 
the  too  fine  ore  of  conviction ;  why  we 
should  adopt  beliefs  that  we  suspect  in 
our  hearts  to  be  of  more  than  equivocal 
authenticity,  but  into  whose  antecedents 
we  do  not  greatly  care  to  inquire,  be- 
cause they  stand  so  well  with  the  general 
public."  The  quality  of  mind  that  lends 
itself  to  this  unworthy  use  is  not  exclus- 
ively an  intellectual  fault,  prone  to  soph- 
istry, not  exclusively  an  aesthetic  coarse- 
ness, leaning  to  Philistinism,  but  quite 
intrinsically  a  moral  weakness,  reflecting 
a  cheap  complacency  and  a  shabby  cow- 
ardice. The  reflection  that  unfortunately 
comes  only  to  the  few,  "  counts  the  cost 
of  keeping  peace  on  earth  and  a  super- 
ficial good  will  among  men."  It  is  the 
value  of  the  larger  foresight,  of  the  firmer 
devotion  to  conviction,  that  we  are  tardily 
realizing  in  trying  to  conserve  resources 


THE   POLITICAL  TEMPER     loi 

outrageously  wasted  in  a  cruel  service  of 
narrow  expediency,  nursed,  fostered,  and 
abetted  by  the  political  spirit.  It  is  pre- 
cisely this  higher  wisdom,  this  loyalty  to 
principle  that  is  demanded  in  developing 
the  intellectual  resources  of  the  nation. 

Accordingly,  while  ideals  do  not  create 
human  qualities,  they  determine  what 
kinds  of  quality  shall  develop  freely  and 
profusely ;  they  give  prominence  and  ef- 
fectiveness to  one  set  of  qualities  and  not 
to  their  opposites ;  and  thus  by  mould- 
ing public  appreciation  stamp  with  ap- 
proval or  neglect  the  selected  qualities 
of  men.  In  large  measure  is  this  accom- 
plished through  leadership  and  the  con- 
ditions affecting  a  ready  following  ;  and 
this  in  turn  through  the  temper  of  insti- 
tutions that  place  in  positions  of  leader- 
ship men  of  one  endowment  or  another. 
Thus  are  communities  to  be  judged  :  by 
the  quality  of  men  they  choose  for  the 
highest  places  and  the  next  high  ;  by  the 
encouragement  they  offer,  the  provisions 


I02    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

they  make  for  the  desirable  and  the  high- 
est ranges  of  human  quality.  By  our  faith 
in  the  wisdom  of  such  judgment,  whether 
confident  of  democracy  or  looking  to  a 
social  order  yet  to  be,  is  the  sturdiness 
of  our  optimism  brought  to  the  test.  For 
the  point  of  consolation  lies  where  Lowell 
has  discerningly  placed  it.  **  Now  amid 
all  the  turmoil  and  fruitless  miscarriage 
of  the  world,  if  there  be  one  thing  stead- 
fast and  of  favorable  omen,  one  thing  to 
make  optimism  distrust  its  own  distrust, 
it  is  the  rooted  instinct  in  men  to  admire 
what  is  better  and  more  beautiful  than 
themselves." 


IX 

The  closer  inspection  through  the  ana- 
lytic glasses  of  psychology,  of  the  difTer- 
entiating  varieties  of  human  quality  and 
of  their  functional  interplay,  falls  outside 
the  range  of  this  survey.  But  no  essay  in 
defense  of  appreciation  can  afford  to 
omit  from  its  composition  some  render- 
ing of  those  larger  waves  of  influence  — 
organic  in  nature  and,  as  here  pertinent, 
psychological  in  form  —  that  play  upon 
the  institutions  of  society  and  shape  their 
finer  contours ;  for  to  these  the  disposition 
of  our  appreciations  is  intimately  subject. 
And  first  of  all,  the  proper  esteem  of  any 
group  of  qualities,  and  particularly  of  the 
poietic  ones,  requires  a  consideration  of 
the  shifting  importance  of  the  ranges  of 
quality  with  the  evolution  of  society. 
Civilization  is  artificial  and  by  its  artifices 


I04    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

demands  and  rewards  such  qualities  as 
best  satisfy  its  constituted  and  in  large 
measure  unnatural  requirements.  The 
qualities  of  greatest  avail  in  one  situation 
prove  relatively  profitless  in  another.  The 
situations,  though  at  once  limited  and 
fostered  by  the  natural  qualities  of  men, 
are  dominantly  imposed  upon  them,  are 
artificial  by  reason  of  their  reconstructed 
emphasis  of  quality.  The  inability  to 
conform  to  that  radical  readjustment 
marks  primitive  races  for  extermination 
when  overtaken  and  dispossessed  by  the 
relentless  regime  of  civilization.  Such 
transformation  of  quality  and  standard 
and  employment  is,  rightly  or  wrongly, 
the  inevitable,  if  self-imposed  white  man's 
burden.  When  confronted  by  its  resistless 
advances,  the  heirs  of  primitive  condi- 
tions, like  our  red-skinned  Americans, 
retire  displaced  ;  or  in  parallel  situations, 
the  new  assimilation  forms  a  serious 
race  problem,  in  which  the  conflict  of 
qualities  and  the  standards  they  set  is  an 


SOCIAL  TRANSFORMATION    105 

essential  though  not  the  exclusive  diffi- 
culty. 

In  the  further  consideration  of  this 
selective  influence  of  an  artificial  environ- 
ment, two  principles  appeal  to  our  prac- 
tical interests.  The  first  is  the  recogni- 
tion of  how  largely  we  live  on  and  by  the 
upper  ranges  of  our  quality  ;  how  largely 
this  circumstance  shapes  careers  and  the 
awards  of  competition,  and  once  more 
throws  the  emphasis  upon  the  due  ap- 
praisal of  the  higher  quality.  Stated  in 
terms  of  vocations,  it  means  that  a  higher 
differs  from  a  lower  vocation  by  its  larger 
demands  of  a  nicer  fitness  of  quality  to 
occupation.  Stated  in  terms  of  standards, 
it  means  that  a  lowering  of  requirement 
or  distorted  distribution  of  award,  will 
more  intimately  and  more  disastrously 
affect  the  highly  differentiated  orders  of 
ability  than  those  of  simpler,  less  exact- 
ing employment.  Specialization  is  itself 
an  eloquent  witness  of  this  many-sided 
truth  ;  for  it  is  but  the  direction  of  talents 


io6    THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

pointedly  to  a  group  of  interests,  raised 
to  importance  by  social  needs,  made  at- 
tractive by  social  encouragement  of  serv- 
ice and  reward.  The  talents  in  question, 
judged  in  terms  of  their  value  for  a  less 
evolved  situation,  might  be  quite  inciden- 
tal in  import  and  most  limited  in  appli- 
cation. The  qualities  thus  made  conspic- 
uous by  the  social  reconstruction  are 
doubtless  derivatives  of  qualities  inherent 
in  human  nature,  fostered  in  some  simpler 
and  different  relation,  in  natural  social 
environments.  In  this  process  of  deriva- 
tion, of  overlaying  primitive  quality  with 
an  envelope  of  civilized  accretion,  lies  the 
problem  of  analysis,  —  of  detecting  the 
earlier  nature  in  the  later  growth,  the 
seed  in  the  fruit.  Yet  it  is  this  expansion 
and  specialized  nurture  of  qualities  —  de- 
rivative, incidental,  adventitious  in  terms 
of  an  older  set  of  values  —  that  gives 
them  their  high  rating ;  in  them  rather 
than  in  their  remote,  closer-to-nature  an- 
tecedents, do  we  live  and  move  and  have 


DERIVATIVE  TRAITS       107 

our  modern  being.  And  this  applies 
equally  to  our  sensibilities,  our  morals, 
our  intelligence,  our  social  intercourse, 
and  our  commercial  transactions.  As  we 
conform  to  more  complex  standards  in 
any  of  these  relations,  we  lean  more  heav- 
ily upon  the  higher,  more  specially  de- 
rivative qualities  ;  we  come  to  live  more 
and  more  on  the  finer  issues,  the  latest 
evolved  fruition  of  our  endowment.  Such 
is  the  transformation  effected  by  civiliza- 
tion, to  whose  social  dominion,  while  yet 
we  reserve  the  privilege  of  individual 
protest,  we  must  perforce  conform  and 
therein  find  our  place.  The  dangers  of  the 
highly  refined,  highly  specialized  life  are 
as  real  as  its  gains.  They  consist  in  the 
neglect  or  weak  esteem  of  the  underlying 
simpler  virtues,  of  the  homely,  fundamen- 
tal, supporting  qualities,  which  are  some- 
thing more  than  the  scaffolding  to  higher 
achievements,  by  the  same  token  by 
which  man  and  society  are  something 
more  than  an  artificial  construction :  be- 


io8    THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

cause  the  structure  involved  is  organic 
and  resents  a  too  radical  departure  from 
its  set  patterns.  Civilization  may  disguise 
vices  as  well  as  transform  worthy  quali- 
ties ;  such  is  ever  the  hazard  of  the  higher 
endeavor.  There  is  also  a  differently  con- 
ditioned hazard,  upon  which  from  another 
approach  attention  was  directed :  that  of 
pronounced  and  unyielding  eccentricity. 
For  all  marked  variation  in  a  specific 
direction  carries  the  resulting  contours 
somewhat  off  their  normal  centre.  In  fix- 
ing the  esteem  of  human  qualities  as  in 
appraising  human  nature,  it  is  indispen- 
sable to  appreciate  how  effectively  the 
demands  of  civilization  transfer  the  em- 
phasis to  the  upper  ranges  as  well  as  to 
the  transformed  derivatives  of  quality, 
and  away  from  their  primitive  signifi- 
cance. True,  the  motives  of  the  earlier 
patterns  remain  and  may  in  part  be 
traced  by  the  keen  psychologist,  though 
they  have  all  but  disappeared  from  the 
'  consciousness  of  their  practitioners.  It  is 


COMPLEX   CONDITIONS     109 

these  relations  that  occupy  the  back- 
ground and  justify  the  perspective  of  the 
present  essay. 

The  second  principle  follows  as  a  cor- 
ollary. With  the  more  sensitive  adjust- 
ment of  quality  to  environment  under  the 
stress  of  the  complexities  of  modern  life,  a 
slight  change  in  standards  affects  the  ap- 
portionment of  success,  brings  to  the  fore- 
ground, to  the  high  places  and  the  next 
high,  this  or  that  group  of  qualities  and 
the  men  who  possess  them.  Stated  bluntly 
and  in  terms  of  practical  success,  a  man 
may  be  prone  to  fail  because  he  is  not 
quite  good  enough,  or  because  he  is  just 
too  good  for  his  job  ;  either  because  his 
proficiencies  are  not  adequate  to  the 
standards  set,  or  because  they  are  ad- 
justed to  a  more  favorable  setting  than 
obtains,  and  cannot  acquire  the  cruder 
momentum  or  adjust  themselves  to  the 
coarser     employment     demanded.^      It 

^  It  is  hardly  pertinent  to  dwell  upon  nor  yet 
wholly  to  overlook  the  ethical  and  aesthetic  phrasing 


no    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

would  be  futile  and  foolish,  insincerely  or 
uncritically  to  have  recourse  to  this  very 
real  cause  as  an  excuse  for  personal  de- 
ficiency ;  and  adaptability  itself  is  a  prized 
and  practical  quality  of  the  type  rightly 
and  duly  enforced  by  practical-minded 
communities.  But  the  proper  use  of  this 
principle  is  helpful;  and  that  in  slight 
contrasts  of  situation  as  well  as  in  great 
ones.  Consider  the  social,  intellectual, 
commercial,  and  cultural  contrasts  of  the 
cities  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard  and  those 
of  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  as  they  present  themselves  to  a 
cosmopolitan  observer;  how  negligible 
they  appear  in  every  generous  rating 
that  confines  itself  to  the  larger  factors, 

of  this  alternative,  which  reads:  that  one  may  suc- 
ceed because  he  is  strong  enough  or  weak  enough  for 
his  job;  because  he  is  sensitively  responsive  or  plac- 
idly callous  to  his  environment;  because  he  is  stead- 
fast and  true  to  principle,  or  because  he  is  complacent 
and  temporizing.  In  these  aspects  as  well,  society  is 
responsible  for  the  adjustment  of  awards  to  qualities, 
and  is  in  turn  judged  by  the  judicial  standards  it 
enforces. 


CONTRASTS   OF   CULTURE     in 

to  the  essential  determinants  of  the  set- 
tings of  life.  And  yet  such  admittedly- 
minor  diflerences  may  readily  become 
decisive  in  according  a  moderate  or  a 
high  or  the  highest  favors,  the  fair  or  the 
fairest  places  and  reputations  ;  they  are 
daily  considered,  aflect  the  choice  of  resi- 
dence, the  careers  and  migrations  of 
men.  The  very  qualities  most  directly 
contributory  to  high  success  in  the  en- 
couragement of  the  one  sympathetic 
milieu  may  in  the  less  hospitable  dispo- 
sition of  the  other  retire  to  a  career  of 
meagre  satisfaction.  So  decidedly  do  the 
creatures  of  man-made  cities  live  and 
prosper  on  the  upper  ranges  of  their  qual- 
ities ;  so  naturally  are  they  sensitive  to 
and  shaped  by  the  favoring  dispositions 
of  their  artificial  environments. 

Even  with  most  imperfect  knowledge 
of  what  may  be  the  fundamental  factors 
in  human  nature,  we  may  quite  definitely 
and  practically  appreciate  their  bearing 
upon  the  qualities  of  men  which  to-day 


112    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

compete  in  the  artificial  arenas  of  society. 
In  this  view  civihzation  becomes  nothing 
else  than  a  transformation  of  the  per- 
spective of  human  qualities ;  bringing- 
some  to  high  places,  retiring  others,  yet 
ever  building  upon  the  motives  and  needs 
sanctioned  by  nature,  shaping  its  pro- 
ducts with  the  grain — not  too  brusquely, 
at  all  events,  against  the  grain  —  of  the 
natural  ore.  Though  our  civilization  is 
thus  carried  along  by  evolutionary  forces 
more  massive  and  influential  than  human 
intervention,  it  yet  remains  true  that  in 
the  strata  in  which  we  live,  whose  con- 
tours determine  our  outlook,  the  decisive 
forces  are  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
preferential  selection  of  collective  and  in- 
dividual ideals ;  and  the  direction  of  these 
motives,  I  have  tried  particularly  to  en- 
force, places  a  peculiar  value  upon  the 
higher  ranges,  the  latest  contributed  con- 
tours of  the  social  structure.  It  is  in  these 
characteristically  that  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being.    Such  is  the  law  of 


THE  SLIGHTER  CONTRASTS   113 

our  social  psychology  as  of  our  material 
economics. 

Society  indeed  artificially  encourages 
these  finer  differences  to  mark  off  the 
significant  qualities  of  men,  and  supplies 
some  outward  indication  of  their  pre- 
sence, —  inevitably  introducing  barriers 
along  with  accessible  gradations  in  a 
consistent  effort  at  once  to  secure  the 
benefit  and  avoid  the  disservice  of  both 
democratic  and  aristocratic  ideals.  A 
conspicuous  issue  of  this  decisive  status 
of  the  minor  differentiations  of  men  is 
the  slight  barrier  that  is  sufficient  to 
create  misunderstanding  and  thwart  use- 
ful assimilation.  The  fact  that  in  spite  of 
so  much  community  of  the  fundamental, 
the  accessory,  and  the  yet  more  deriva- 
tive traits,  English  and  French,  or  Eng- 
lish and  German,  or  English  and  Ameri- 
can, are  so  instantly  and  persistently 
impressed  with  their  differences,  demon- 
strates how  markedly  men  live  and  judge 
by  the  finer  shadings  of  their  national 


114    THE  QUALITIES   OF  MEN 

color-schemes.  Indeed,  Mr.  Kipling  re- 
gards the  assimilation  of  a  high-class 
American  to  high-grade  English  sur- 
roundings as  so  unattainable  as  to  call  the 
attempt  the  story  of  "  An  Experiment  in 
the  Fourth  Dimension."  And  within  our 
own  vast  and  yet  efficiently  assimilated 
domain,  Northerner  and  Southerner, 
Easterner  and  Westerner,  profession  and 
trade,  urban  and  rustic,  mass  and  class, 
are  acutely  conscious  of  their  differentia- 
tions. The  law  of  social  specialization 
obtains ;  it  presents  the  minor  yet  real 
danger  of  raising  fences  and  promoting 
feuds ;  it  performs  the  larger  service  of 
perfecting  and  developing  the  social 
value  of  the  higher  ranges  of  the  qualities 
of  men. 


X 


The  assignment  of  cause  and  effect 
in  the  larger  movements  of  general 
ideas,  particularly  under  the  character- 
istic dominance  of  social  forces  in  a  con- 
crete setting,  can  never  be  simple.  The 
direction  of  progress  is  not  in  a  straight 
line,  but  inclines  to  an  ascending  spiral  ; 
the  encouragement  of  a  partial  achieve- 
ment strengthens  the  favoring  factors  of 
circumstance ;  and  their  increased  effi- 
ciency induces  further  achievement  of  the 
same  order.  Ideals  guide  achievement ; 
but  achievement  equally  vitalizes  ideals; 
each  grows  in  the  sympathetic  medium 
supplied  by  the  other.  Stated  abstractly, 
it  is  not  very  clear  how  either  gets  a 
foothold  or  matures  to  independent  stat- 
ure. The  dilemma  recalls  the  Hibernian 
demonstration    of   the   impossibility   of 


ii6    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

constructing  an  underground  tunnel :  the 
excavation  requires  the  presence  of  the 
scaffold-arch  which  supports  the  open- 
ing until  the  masonry  is  set ;  and  to  find 
a  place  for  this  arch  necessitates  a  pre- 
pared excavation  for  it.  Yet  by  modest 
advances  each  step  is  accommodated  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  other ;  and  how- 
ever paradoxically,  tunnels  are  built,  and 
however  wanting  in  strict  logical  pro- 
cedure, intellectual  movements  are  ad- 
vanced. 

In  its  bearing  upon  the  pertinence  of 
the  pragmatist's  position,  the  relation 
has  been  touched  upon  ;  an  indisputable 
fact  of  observation  is  involved.  It  may 
be  illustrated  in  a  concrete  setting,  which 
is  indispensable  to  convey  its  practical 
meaning.  As  others  see  us,  and  as  we 
can  hardly  avoid  seeing  ourselves,  the 
characteristic  of  the  American  man's  me- 
chanical equation  is  its  restless  energy, 
its  push  or  hustle.  In  so  far  as  hustling 
brings  results,  it  gives  the  incentive  to 


AMERICAN    PUSH  117 

still  more  vigorous  hustling.  At  the  same 
time,  those  complex  ingredients  in  the 
situation  that  made  hustling  successful 
to  begin  with  are  encouraged,  and  in 
turn  reward  more  amply  the  strenuosity 
of  its  devotees.  Presently,  hustling  is  a 
standard,  a  social  ideal ;  and  the  man  of 
sober  pace  is  looked  upon  as  a  weaker 
or  a  wayward  straggler.  The  neglect  of 
this  reciprocal  relation  is  at  once  a  psy- 
chological fault  and  a  practical  error.  It 
is  inherent  in  the  psychology  of  adver- 
tising, which  proceeds  by  an  appeal  to 
the  varied  qualities  of  men.  That  the 
qualities  appealed  to  are  but  in  small 
measure  fixed  by  human  nature  is  suffi- 
ciently clear  ;  custom,  morals,  prejudice, 
fashion,  above  all  social  and  national 
standards  enter  into  the  composite  ap- 
peal. The  bid  for  commercial  favor  that 
attracts  one  class  repels  another,  or  that 
works  well  in  the  United  States  fails  in 
England  ;  automobiles  and  biscuits ;  pi- 
anos and  stocks  ;  soaps  and  rifles,  cannot 


ii8    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

have  their  excellencies  set  forth  in  the 
same  way.  That  is  clear  and  recognized ; 
but  what  is  less  clear  is  that  the  suscep- 
tibility to  an  advertising  appeal  is  at 
once  facilitated  by  the  accepted  achieve- 
ments of  publicity,  and  favors  the  exten- 
sion of  its  service.  This  factor  introduces 
a  precarious  element ;  the  susceptibility 
concerned  may  be  checked  by  a  change 
of  ideal.  It  might  become  bad  form  to 
have  an  advertised  article  in  the  house- 
hold ;  and  with  a  larger  pride  in  inde- 
pendence of  action,  the  too  familiarly 
presuming  advertisement  to  which  our 
complacency  surrenders,  might  offend 
our  self-esteem.  Public  sentiment  might 
be  so  aroused  to  the  aesthetic  outrage  in- 
volved that  the  enterprise  that  disfigures 
places  of  natural  beauty  w^ould  bring 
about  a  boycott  rather  than  an  extension 
of  custom. 

The  principle  in  question  has  other  as- 
pects. Employment  follows  the  clue  of 
quality.    Individually  each  likes  to  do 


SUPPLY   AND   DEMAND     119 

what  he  can  do  well ;  the  possession  of 
skill  leads  to  its  exercise,  and  the  exer- 
cise develops  skill.  Communities  are  sim- 
ilarly affected  and  introduce  the  most 
influential  —  and  it  may  be  the  most  dis- 
turbing —  factor  in  the  social  sanction  or 
approval.  The  economic  determination 
is  of  an  allied  nature  but  more  direct  and 
commanding  in  action.  Each  productive 
area  develops  —  though  not  free  from 
accidental  and  artificial  encouragement 
—  the  industries  best  suited  to  its  re- 
sources. Yet  once  more,  ideals  enter  to 
determine  fashions  and  use,  which  affect 
the  demand,  that  affects  the  supply,  that 
affects  the  production,  that  affects  the 
prosperity,  that  affects  the  ideals;  and 
thus  repeats,  House-that-Jack-built-wise, 
the  circle,  or  more  accurately  (because 
the  modes  of  influence  are  so  various), 
the  irregularly  advancing  spiral  of  cause 
and  effect.  The  favoring  influence  of  the 
environment  in  intellectual  affairs  acts 
similarly  though  covertly.  The  satisfac- 


I20    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

tions  sought  are  analogous,  the  modes 
of  finding  them  distinct.  In  a  decline  of 
demand,  the  economic  community  turns 
to  a  changed  output ;  in  an  unpromising 
environment,  the  possessor  of  a  special- 
ized quality  seeks  a  more  favorable  mi- 
lieu. The  more  highly  specialized,  the 
more  marked  the  poietic  dependence,  the 
greater  the  sensitiveness  to  the  help  or 
hindrance  of  the  environment.  In  this 
aspect  what  has  been  said  of  Boston  — 
that  it  is  not  a  city  but  a  state  of  mind  — 
is  true  of  every  environment ;  for  the 
purposes  of  the  census  enumeration,  it  is 
a  material  collection  of  habitations  and 
institutions  for  the  shelter  of  the  hives  and 
homes  of  men  ;  for  the  purposes  of  a  cul- 
tural appraisal,  it  is  a  complex  embodi- 
ment of  thus  encouraging,  thus  indiffer- 
ent, and  thus  inhospitable  appeals  to  the 
diverse  qualities  of  the  dwellers  therein. 
Incidentally,  yet  by  no  means  negligi- 
bly, the  warmth  of  the  hospitality  ex- 
tended to  one  or  another  selected  order 


ADJUSTMENT  121 

of  human  quality  affects  intimately  the 
flavor  and  the  yield  of  the  output.  Ad- 
justment is  the  law  of  organic  life  whether 
lowly  or  complex.  The  sense  of  intellect- 
ual adjustment  brings  the  contentment 
of  coming  to  one's  own,  of  finding 
one's  place,  which  is  again  a  distinctive 
achievement  in  life,  directed  by  the  sen- 
sibilities. The  finding  thereof  is  tradi- 
tionally and  socially,  as  well  as  tempera- 
mentally and  vocationally  directed.  The 
national  bent  finds  ready  expression  in 
idiomatic  coloring;  the  German  seeks 
an  environment  that  is  gemuthlich  ;  the 
Italian,  if  you  appreciate  the  setting  that 
appeals  to  him,  finds  you  simpatico ;  the 
French  demands  and  responds  to  the  es- 
prit in  every  situation ;  the  Anglo-Saxon 
retires  to  the  snug  and  cosy  privacy  of 
his  home.  The  adjusted  organism  finds 
positive  contentment,  and  negatively  — 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  the  acuter  con- 
sciousness of  displeasure  —  finds  relief 
from  the  constant  irritants  of  an  uncon- 


122    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

genial  environment  that  sours  disposi- 
tions and  dissipates  energy.  The  artist 
insists  upon  finding  his  inilieu  somewhere 
and  somehow :  theoretically,  by  virtue  of 
inner  quality  and  acquired  skill,  he  should 
work  as  well  in  Chicago  as  in  Paris ;  ac- 
tually, the  inspiration  of  Paris  abides  with 
him  in  Chicago ;  and  the  artistic  migra- 
tion between  the  two  cities  is  as  yet  in 
the  one  direction  only.  In  brief,  the 
higher  quality  requires  the  nicer  adjust- 
ment, remains  more  acutely  sensitive  to 
the  meteorology  of  the  social  climate. 
You  cannot  command  a  man  to  write  a 
poem  as  you  would  to  dig  a  ditch. 

The  actual  presence  of  irritations  im- 
pedes activity  more  disastrously  than  the 
mere  absence  of  mild  encouragements 
suggests ;  and  whatever  does  not  make 
for  adjustment  makes  against  it.  Natu- 
rally a  reasonable  vigor  and  self-confi- 
dence rise  superior  to  circumstance ;  and 
the  story  of  neglected  genius  in  a  garret 
has  real  pertinence  quite  apart  from  its 


ADJUSTMENT  123 

dramatic  convenience.  But  in  the  affairs 
of  men  the  average  and  the  fair  minority- 
count  ;  the  cumulative  force  of  environ- 
mental factors  remains  ever  impressive. 
Untoward  environments  are  unfair  odds 
against  any  pursuit ;  and  environments 
will  ever  be  sought  for  their  favoring 
nurture  of  cherished  qualities,  for  their 
ability  to  supply  the  contented  adjust- 
ment that  brings  inherently  promising 
seed  to  fine  flower  and  fruit.  That,  with 
changing  emphasis  under  varying  ideals 
and  circumstances,  is  what  Athens  or 
Rome  or  Paris  or  London  have  meant 
or  now  mean ;  what  New  York  or  Bos- 
ton, Chicago  or  San  Francisco  assert ; 
what  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  Harvard  or 
Yale  cultivate  ;  what  democracy  or  aris- 
tocracy, science  or  religion,  conservatism 
or  socialism  include  within  their  distinc- 
tive, yet  commonly  inspired  ideals. 

Before  dismissing  this  notable  princi- 
ple of  interaction  of  purpose  and  condi- 
tion, a  beneficent  aspect  of  the  suscep- 


124    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

tibility  of  ideal  to  bend  to  circumstance, 
and  of  circumstance  to  yield  to  the  shap- 
ing nurture  of  ideals,  may  be  touched 
upon.  Nature  supplies  the  varied  quali- 
ties of  men ;  nurture  selects  and  de- 
velops their  employment,  giving  promi- 
nence to  favored  groups,  —  in  one  set- 
ting to  the  artistic,  in  another  to  the 
mechanically  inventive,  in  one  to  the 
philosophical,  in  another  to  the  political ; 
and  so  on  in  manifold  combination.  All 
the  several  factors  are  constantly  present 
in  every  complex  society ;  what  varies  is 
the  prominence  of  one  or  the  other.  The 
quicker  changes  of  fashion  show  the 
process  at  work  more  convincingly  than 
the  slower  evolutions  by  which  we  meas- 
ure the  larger  onward  movements  of 
culture.  A  peculiarly  interesting  illustra- 
tion of  such  preferential  selection  is  the 
effect  of  the  ideals  developed  by  men  in 
regard  to  the  desirable  qualities  of  wo- 
men. From  the  harem  to  collegiate  co- 
education seems  an  impossible  contrast 


FEMININE  QUALITY        125 

to  have  been  bridged  by  slow,  irregular, 
and  halting  advances.  What  it  really 
proves  is  the  plasticity  of  quality  — 
shared  by  women  and  men  alike,  though 
perhaps  not  equally  —  which  permitted 
the  opening  of  the  buds  when  the  climate 
softened  and  the  gardener  withdrew  his 
nipping  disfavor ;  what  it  still  leaves  in 
doubt  are  the  intrinsic  capacities  of  those 
powers  when  freed  from  restraining  im- 
pediment, when  equalized  (so  far  as  they 
may  be)  with  the  favoring  encourage- 
ments of  the  masculine  career.  These 
slower,  longer,  deeper  changes  are  too 
involved  to  yield  a  ready  index  of  effi- 
ciency of  any  designated  factor;  but  it 
is  unmistakable  that  gradual  reform  of 
ideal  has  brought  the  qualities  suited  to 
each  stage  of  growth  to  the  foreground, 
selecting  and  strengthening  at  once. 
The  unrest,  suggestive  of  ill-adjustment, 
that  inspired  reform,  gave  it  headway. 
The  removal  of  social  disfavor  anent  the 
higher  education  for  women  brings  the 


126    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

academically  trained  woman  into  pro- 
minence, encourages  the  qualities  and 
aspirations  needed  for  active  participa- 
tion in  intellectual  interests.  The  respon- 
siveness of  women  to  a  shifting-  environ- 
ment merits  special  consideration  by 
virtue  of  their  distinctive  and  restricted 
share  in  the  shaping  of  the  ideals  which 
in  turn  they  are  to  satisfy. 

In  the  more  capricious  domain  of  fash- 
ion, the  movement  is  brisker  and  more 
discernible.  When  men  idealized  a  type, 
delicate,  frail,  prone  to  tears  and  swoons, 
shocked  at  the  least  invasion  of  pro- 
priety, sheltered  from  direct  contact  with 
worldly  crudities,  compromised  in  every 
innocent  expression  of  candor,  the  type 
seems  to  have  been  prominent  and  pop- 
ular. With  the  favoring  of  the  robust, 
athletic,  confident,  even  domineering 
young  woman  of  the  day,  this  type  was 
in  turn  selected  and  developed.  It  is 
even  reported  that  when  society  prefers 
its  belles  to  be  tall  or  dark,  or  in  turn  of 


FEMININE   QUALITY        127 

fashion,  casts  its  favor  upon  the  blondes 
or  the  petites,  the  prominent  debutantes 
of  the  season  complacently  assume  the 
preferred  graces  of  complexion  and  sta- 
ture. The  significance  of  preferential 
selection  remains;  it  does  not  create, 
but  it  gives  prominence  to  selected  qual- 
ities. The  beneficent  character  of  such 
plasticity  is  two-fold.  It  gives  play  to 
a  range  of  quality,  favors  versatility,  pre- 
vents too  rigid  a  set  of  character,  miti- 
gates the  fatality  of  misapplied  favor, 
facilitates  reform,  and  gives  the  needed 
touch  of  optimism  to  those  with  faith  in 
the  future  of  human  nature  and  human 
institutions.  Secondly  it  gives  special 
value  to  those  slighter  advances  which 
alone  one  generation,  even  one  voice  fur- 
thers. Though  we  consider  forests,  what 
we  plant  or  help  to  mature  are  the  in- 
dividual trees  in  our  modest  and  limited 
nurseries.  Whether  men  of  high  inclin- 
ation and  rare  quality  will  make  good 
or  yield  to  importunity,  the  drift  of  fav- 


128    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

oring  influence  determines ;  or  as  the 
observant  Mr.  E.  S.  Martin  observes : 
"  Many  men  to  whom  high  thinking 
might  have  been  possible,  have  suffered 
an  aversion  to  plain  living  to  turn  their 
intellectual  energies  into  more  common- 
place channels."  Particularly  is  this  true 
of  the  direction  of  ideals  by  the  leaders  of 
men.  Here,  as  Lord  Morley  contends,  the 
matter  of  real  importance  "  is  the  mind 
and  attitude  not  of  the  ordinary  man, 
but  of  those  who  should  be  extraordin- 
ary. The  decisive  sign  of  the  elevation  of 
a  nation's  life  is  to  be  sought  amongst 
those  who  lead  or  ought  to  lead," 

These  comments  suggest  the  yet  more 
direct  applications  of  the  standards  of 
award  to  the  qualities  of  merit,  which  are 
to  be  the  theme  of  the  concluding  con- 
siderations. Yet  the  pointedness  at  this 
juncture  of  the  moral  of  the  tale  will  ex- 
cuse a  slight  anticipation  and  a  modest 
repetition.  Applying  these  conclusions 
to  the  distribution  of  ability,  particularly 


IMPORT  OF   LEADERSHIP     129 

of  its  higher,  more  readily  blighted  va- 
rieties, it  follows  with  fair  presumption 
that  for  every  case  of  marked  success, 
there  must  be  many  more  competitors  of 
quite  equal  capacity  whom  the  discour- 
agement of  circumstance,  or  the  distrac- 
tion of  interests,  or  the  ill-adjustment  of 
appraisal,  has  deprived  of  a  like  meas- 
ure of  reward.  In  a  later  context  I  speak 
of  this  doctrine  as  the  recognition  of  the 
"mute  and  inglorious  Miltons";  and  to 
forestall  abuse,  I  have  issued  the  warn- 
ing that  this  principle  is  not  to  be  used 
to  console  failure  by  assuming  unrecog- 
nized merit ;  it  may  well  be  used  to  check 
self-esteem  and  prevent  too  ready  assump- 
tion of  high  quality  through  the  success 
of  circumstance.  But  its  chief  pertinence 
consists  in  the  plea,  which  it  shelters, 
that  the  qualities  of  men  have  in  one, 
though  but  one,  aspect  of  their  apprai- 
sal, the  right  to  be  judged  in  reasonable 
independence  of  the  uncertain  issues  of 
achievement.  This  is  what  is  meant  by 


I30    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

being  critical ;  not  to  disdain  popular 
approval,  but  to  value  it  at  its  true  worth  ; 
not  to  confuse  being  conspicuous  with 
being  able.  It  follows  that  in  every  real- 
izable social  system,  men  of  very  un- 
equal quality  will  hold  like  positions  ; 
and  again,  that  men  of  very  equal  qual- 
ities will  hold  vastly  different  positions. 
So  once  more,  we  return  to  the  consid- 
eration that  is  at  once  the  conclusion 
and  the  plea  of  our  premises  :  that  the 
institutions  of  society  are  to  be  judged 
by  their  fitness  to  place  the  right  men  in 
the  right  places  ;  that  a  decisive  circum- 
stance in  this  adjustment  is  the  manner 
of  exercise  of  the  aristocratic  wisdom 
that  throws  the  largest  reponsibility  upon 
those  most  capable  of  critical  judgment. 
The  mute  and  inglorious  Miltons  will 
continue  to  be  present  in  our  midst, 
awaiting  their  discoverers  or  their  pa- 
trons, or  yet  more  favorably,  the  trans- 
forming social  appreciation,  that  will  re- 
lieve them  of  their  muteness  and  mod- 
estly assign  them  recognition. 


XI 

It  is  only  in  Utopia  that  condition  is 
so  nicely  fitted  to  merit  that  success  be- 
comes of  itself  significant.  A  mundane 
people  must  first  itself  be  judged  before 
approving  the  type  of  men  to  whom  it 
awards  success.  It  is  not  only  conceiv- 
able but,  I  fear,  demonstrable,  that  a 
people  can  legislate  mediocrity  into 
power,  and  make  shallow  expediency 
effective,  while  yet  they  ignore  the  wiser 
ones  in  their  midst  and  place  obstacles 
in  the  path  of  the  more  discerning.  There 
is  indeed  no  more  abused  word  in  all 
language  than  this  fetich-monster,  Suc- 
cess, unless  it  be  the  object  of  its  prey. 
Human  Nature.  Surely  for  a  psycholo- 
gist to  question  the  validity  of  human 
nature  and  its  comprehensive  law-abid- 
ing character  would  be  to  argue  himself 


132    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

out  of  a  profession ;  but  the  notions,  ten- 
dencies, and  traits  ascribed  to  it  by  press 
and  people  and  Mother  Grundy  make 
of  it  not  a  principle  nor  a  category  but  a 
waste-basket.  It  is  the  nature  of  some 
humans  not  to  pay  their  debts ;  it  is  the 
nature  of  others  not  to  feel  comfortable 
so  long  as  they  have  any  debts.  It  is  the 
nature  of  students  to  exhibit  their  legit- 
imized follies  where  all  the  world  and 
his  sweetheart  may  hear  and  see ;  it  is 
the  nature  of  their  contemporaries  more 
soberly  occupied  to  keep  their  indiscre- 
tions as  private  as  possible.  It  is  the  na- 
ture of  some  portions  of  the  amphibious 
public  to  eat  and  drink  and  buy  what 
the  didactic  counsel  of  the  street-cars  ad- 
vises ;  it  is  the  nature  of  others  to  look 
with  extreme  suspicion  upon  any  article 
that  is  extensively  advertised.  It  is  the 
nature  of  janitors,  hotel  clerks,  and  rail- 
way officials  to  be  supercilious  and  su- 
perior ;  and  it  seems  the  nature  of  the 
perfect  American  to  put  up  with  it.   I 


HUMAN    NATURE  133 

have  yet  to  learn  of  any  wisdom  or  folly, 
virtue  or  foible,  habit,  usage,  prejudice, 
or  predilection,  that  is  not  ascribed  by 
somebody  to  human  nature.  Assuredly, 
the  underlying  make-up,  the  basal  tem- 
peraments, the  primeval  instincts  and 
impulses  are  bred  in  the  bone  and  show 
through  the  tout  ensemble.  But  what  we 
look  upon  in  the  flesh-and-blood-covered 
body,  and  still  more  significantly  in  the 
conventionally  clothed,  adorned,  tailor- 
made,  civilized  man  or  woman  is  not  an 
anatomical  specimen.  Indisputably  po- 
tent as  human  nature  is  and  will  ever  be, 
the  variations  played  upon  this  primitive 
theme  by  civilizations,  and  the  revolu- 
tionar}'  as  well  as  evolutionary  transform- 
ations it  effects,  make  impossible  any 
ready  determination  or  enumeration  of 
the  humanly  natural  traits.  And  for  the 
most  part  the  aspects  of  things  which  we 
observe  about  us,  and  then  in  turn  those 
aspects  thereof  for  which  we  have  a  con- 
siderable responsibility,  are  due  far  more 


134    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

to  what  our  complacency  permits,  our 
beliefs  approve,  our  efforts  support,  our 
ideals  sanction,  than  to  the  sheltered 
kernel  of  our  common  nature.  The  prob- 
lem is  again  to  render  unto  the  earthly 
and  temporal  Caesar  what  is  Csesar's,  and 
not  to  ascribe  to  an  inscrutable  agency, 
what  the  temporal  cannot  account  for 
or  does  not  care  to  assume. 

And  similarly  of  success  ;  there  are  as 
many  varieties  as  of  human  nature,  and 
some  of  them  quite  as  superficially  signi- 
ficant. Material  success  and  tangible  re- 
ward, and  the  tallies  of  crops,  we  may 
leave  to  the  estimable  if  dismal  science 
of  statistics.  But  the  adjustment  of  social 
approval  to  social  forces  and  conditions 
must  affect  and  be  affected  by  just  these 
variable,  educable,  appraisable  qualities 
—  this  interplay  of  ideals,  purposes,  en- 
dowments, and  fortunes  —  whose  inter- 
actions we  are  setting  before  us.  And 
to  the  reflective  and  responsible,  the 
question  is  never  narrowly  what  does 


SUCCESS  135 

succeed,  where  the  pomp  and  glitter,  but 
critically  what  should  succeed,  where  the 
laurel  and  the  palm,  from  whom  the 
stamp  of  approval.  The  French,  with  a 
nicer  sense  of  the  fitness  of  term  and 
situation,  have  the  redeeming  phrase, 
succes  d^estime,  which  hits  a  very  pivotal 
nail  precisely  on  the  head.  Loftiness  of 
aim  is  in  itself  an  inviolable  factor  of  suc- 
cess, though  vagueness,  inconsequence, 
impracticability,  lack  of  tact  and  poise 
quickly  neutralize  its  worth.  Lowness  of 
aim  is  yet  more  reprehensible  than  ab- 
sence of  capacity,  as  a  cause  of  common 
failure.  Success  as  we  witness  or  experi- 
ence it  should  please  and  be  cherished ; 
but  it  should  not  dazzle  and  confuse. 
Homely  thrift  triumphant  and  prodigal 
wile  baffled  will  do  well  enough  for  melo- 
drama ;  but  the  complexity  of  actual  re- 
lations at  once  commands  circnm.spection 
and  gives  to  esteem  a  deeper  value. 
Life  is  not  simple,  and  for  us  and  those 
like  us  to  come,  will  never  be  so.  The 


136    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

insistence  that  it  is  so,  is  but  a  mark  of 
our  insensitiveness  or  of  our  other  limi- 
tations. For  those  who  have  faith  in  the 
worth  of  the  higher  ranges  of  human 
quality,  the  simple  life  and  the  life  stren- 
uous present  the  most  misleading  of  all 
ideals.  For  such,  neither  the  simplicity 
of  the  tread-mill  nor  the  strenuosity  of 
the  pile-driver  offers  a  worthy  model  for 
human  endeavor. 

It  is  probably  not  accidental  that  in 
the  early  days  of  this  commonwealth  — 
whose  totem  is  the  far-sighted  eagle  — 
we  should  have  in  our  practical  and  pro- 
verbial philosophy  focussed  our  vision  at 
short  range  —  penny  wise  and  pound 
foolish.  Poor  Richard's  Almanac  scat- 
tered broadcast  an  amount  of  ostrich- 
like sapience,  which  even  the  transcend- 
entalism of  an  Emerson  failed  to  retire. 
To  promise  not  wisdom  alone  but  health 
and  happiness  in  addition  as  the  reward 
for  so  simple  a  device  as  setting  an  alarm 
clock  upon  unfinished  slumbers,  is  a  bit 


SIMPLIFICATION  137 

of  vapid  sententiousness,  which,  along 
with  a  goodly  company  of  similar  saws, 
inculcates  as  a  complete  philosophy,  in- 
dustry, thrift,  temperance,  prudence,  and 
the  bourgeois  virtues  ;  all  this  sign-paint- 
er's appreciation  of  the  arts  of  life  pro- 
duces a  wholly  misleading  simplification 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live,  indeed,  of 
any  endurable  world  in  which  life  would 
be  worth  living.  Yet  in  fairness  and  in 
gratitude  let  it  be  added  that  this  **  age 
of  innocence  "  doctrine  is  rapidly  disap- 
pearing. It  survives  in  copy-book  max- 
ims, in  the  inconsequential  hortatory 
appeals  of  the  baccalaureate  address,  and 
in  the  confessions  of  genial  plutocrats  in 
the  columns  of  the  popular  press. 

And  thus,  however  regretfully,  let  us 
discard  any  illusion  of  a  golden  age,  and 
equally  free  ourselves  from  the  dissem- 
bling atmosphere  of  convention.  Let  us 
view  human  nature  understandingly, 
judge  success  critically,  and  appraise 
quality   worthily,  not   superstitiously  — 


138    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

which  in  Lowell's  definition  is  "  the  habit 
of  respecting  what  we  are  told  to  respect 
rather  than  what  is  respectable  in  itself." 
When  so  judged,  the  common  and  con- 
stant standards  prove  once  more  to  be 
the  qualities  of  men,  but  qualities  set  in 
circumstance,  and  reflecting  the  varying 
approval  of  ideals.  Without  losing  their 
logical  perspective,  cause  and  effect  shift 
and  interact,  making  success  equally  a 
measure  of  the  efficiency  of  personal 
quality  when  adjusted  to  circumstance, 
and  a  criterion  of  the  conditions  under 
which  quality  must  develop.  As  a  soci- 
ety, as  a  nation,  as  a  community,  as 
members  of  institutions — all  highly  com- 
plex, elaborately  artificial,  deeply  histori- 
cal, and  yet  consistently  human  —  we 
are  not  passive  spectators  of  our  own 
evolution,  but  active  determining  partici- 
pants ;  we  award  even  as  we  compete,  — 
are  judge,  and  jury,  and  contestants  in 
turn.  Out  of  this  relation  emerges,  though 
at  times  uncertainly,  the  categorical  im- 


TEST   OF  A   COMMUNITY     139 

perative  of  the  ideal,  that  checks  the 
hand  turning  to  grasp  the  prize  of  un- 
worthy success,  or  inspires  in  protest  or 
appeal  the  voice  of  the  critic,  the  re- 
former, the  poet,  the  philanthropist.  More 
subtly,  yet  no  less  effectively,  the  same 
motive  force,  though  much  involved  with 
other  considerations,  determines  the  trend 
of  opinion,  the  balance  of  votes,  the  push 
of  influence,  that  gives  vitality  to  the  bet- 
ter or  to  the  worse  cause.  For  it  is  not 
so  much  the  sophistry  of  the  intellect  as 
it  is  the  fiabbiness  of  purpose  and  the 
callousness  of  the  sensibilities,  that  inter- 
feres with  the  assertiveness  of  the  higher 
aims  and  of  the  nobler  qualities  of  men. 
It  is  as  critics  of  our  own  success  that  we 
are  best  judged.  In  that  judgment  there 
is  a  failure  that  is  worthy  and  a  success 
that  is  base.  The  succbs  d^estime  becomes 
the  court  of  last  appeal ;  and  the  traits 
which  are  selected  to  qualify  for  a  place 
in  that  body,  become  the  truest  test  of 
the  purposes  of  a  community.   So  long 


I40    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

as  Utopia  remains  an  ideal,  we  shall  be 
wasteful,  and  what  is  worst  and  saddest, 
wasteful  of  just  what  is  most  precious,  — 
the  unusual,  poietic  qualities  of  men.  It 
seems  at  times  as  though  in  our  perver- 
sity or  our  ignorance,  or  in  our  immer- 
sion in  other  affairs,  we  set  in  operation 
a  vast  educational  machinery,  in  the 
hope  thus  to  foster  qualities,  which  we 
then  weakly  encourage  or  forcibly  retire 
in  favor  of  others  that  maintain  them- 
selves apart  from  the  very  institutions  to 
which  we  point  as  our  contribution  to 
ideals.  And  because  of  this  it  is  neces- 
sary from  time  to  time  to  review  our  sta- 
tus ;  for  discussion,  like  confession,  is 
said  to  be  good  for  the  soul.  It  will  be  so 
if  the  searching  it  involves  sharpens  in- 
sight, and  quickens  resolve.  If  in  any 
measure  the  consideration  of  human 
quality  will  have  aided  the  substitution 
of  criticism  for  complacency,  of  weighing 
for  counting ;  if  it  makes  less  easy  the 
impressiveness  of  glitter,  and  more  ac- 


HIGHER   APPRECIATION     141 

cessible  the  practice  of  discrimination,  it 
will  have  practically  furthered  the  wor- 
thier service  of  the  qualities  of  men.  It 
will  also  have  inculcated  the  obligation 
of  endeavor  as  well  as  of  insight.  Of 
cultural  no  less  than  of  familiar  practical 
concerns  is  it  conspicuously  true  that 
things  do  not  get  better  of  themselves. 
"The  improvement  of  the  community 
depends  not  merely  on  the  elevation  of 
its  maxims  but  on  the  quickening  of  its 
sensibility." 


XII 

By  way  of  refrain,  I  propose  to  rehearse 
the  themes  of  the  several  movements 
of  this  expansive  opus.  First,  last,  and 
throughout,  runs  the  theme  that  sen- 
sibility makes  the  man.  It  is  the  hub 
of  the  wheel  into  which  the  several 
spokes  of  our  capabilities  and  interests 
are  set ;  together  they  make  possible  the 
encompassing  conduct  and  achievement, 
the  rim  upon  which  we  travel  —  child, 
youth  and  man  —  through  our  uncertain 
and  irregular  journey.  Commanding  in 
the  aesthetic  nature,  the  sensibilities  are 
no  less  determinant  in  the  intellectual,  the 
moral,  the  social,  and  the  practical  phases 
of  our  activity.  I  set  the  theme  domi- 
nantly  in  the  aesthetic  key,  but  expanded 
it  by  variations  in  the  related  ones  of 
thought  and  conduct.    I  am  persuaded 


THE  SENSIBILITIES         143 

that  the  theme  is  appropriate  to  all  its 
settings ;  that  despite  the  possible  con- 
fusion of  outer  show  and  inner  worth, 
much  of  morality  is  alike  aesthetic,  and 
fastidiousness  a  helpful  companion  to 
virtue ;  that  the  finer  edge  of  capacity 
and  insight  is  acquired  through  the  sup- 
port of  sensibilities. 

While  mindful  of  the  dangers  of  over- 
refinement  and  the  enfeebling  of  energy 
by  hesitation  of  scruple  or  shock,  the 
more  immanent  peril  lies  in  a  crude  sen- 
sationalism, in  the  insensitiveness  that 
takes  to  strong  stimulants,  and  bully-like 
overrides  what  it  cannot  appreciate.  Yet 
the  common  form  of  the  difficulty  is  that 
of  an  unwise  neglect  of  the  gifts  of  sen- 
sibility in  favor  of  the  more  tractable, 
the  more  tangible  acquisitions,  —  of  fash- 
ioning our  educative  principles  and  pro- 
cedures upon  the  offsets  and  comple- 
ments to  sensibility,  to  the  detriment  of 
the  social  tone  and  ideals  of  the  people. 
The  issues  of  personality,  reflected  in  the 


144    THE   QUALITIES  OF   MEN 

manners,  traditions,  customs,  and  envi- 
ronment that  jointly  contribute  to  the 
standard  of  living,  are  the  only  means  as 
yet  discovered  that  will  intimately  edu- 
cate ;  for  they  are  education  personally 
embodied  and  conducted.  The  arts  that 
our  college  students  need  most  to  ac- 
quire in  order  to  emerge  as  cultivated 
men  and  women  are  not  altogether  in- 
cluded in  the  curriculum  ;  nor  need  they 
be  so,  if  only  the  atmosphere  to  which 
the  novitiates  are  exposed,  while  so  much 
of  the  curriculum  is  administered  as  each 
is  fitted  to  imbibe,  gives  the  proper  in- 
spiration for  right  living.  The  admixture 
of  sensibility  with  training  and  capacity 
makes  a  marvelous  instrument,  and  by 
infusing  mediocrity  or  patient  drudgery 
with  the  power  of  appreciation,  brings 
it  within  the  range  of  invention,  criticism, 
and  the  higher  quality. 

With  this  interlude,  I  repeated  the 
theme  in  the  intellectual  key  and  illus- 
trated how  stupidity  is  not  so  character- 


THE  BLENDS  OF  QUALITY   145 

istically  lack  of  logical  capacity  —  of 
which  despite  democratic  schooling  there 
remains  a  sufficient  supply  —  as  it  is  defi- 
ciency of  observation  or  responsiveness, 
combined  with  inertia.  And  I  established 
the  reasonableness  of  my  plea  by  intro- 
ducing into  the  concluding  chord,  the 
convincing  admission  that  there  were 
doggedly  practical  affairs  in  life  demand- 
ing only  practical  qualities,  —  skill,  train- 
ing, poise,  clear-sightedness.  Thus  the 
toilers  and  spinners  were  reconciled  to 
the  lilies  of  the  field. 

The  second  movement,  piu  allegro, 
introduced  the  complexity  of  the  temper- 
aments, the  blendings  of  traits  ;  and  yet 
sought  for  unity,  for  some  principles  of 
composition  whereby  to  separate  the 
higher  from  the  lower,  or  at  least  dis- 
tantly to  follow  the  natural  boundaries 
of  human  quality.  We  found  confusion, 
owing  mostly  to  the  disturbing  masquer- 
ading bent  of  Dame  Fortune,  to  the  un- 
certainties of  fate,  the  conventions  of  in- 


146    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

stitutions,  the  distortions  of  circumstance. 
Executing  a  flourish  of  fancy,  we  drifted 
Utopia-ward,  and  with  Mr.  Wells  as 
guide,  found  profit  in  our  excursion  upon 
return  to  earth.  With  the  usual  experi- 
ence of  travelers,  we  found  near  at  home 
the  analogues  of  our  discoveries  abroad ; 
and  in  the  distinctions  approximated  by 
such  classic  terms  as  Athenian  and  Boeo- 
tian, or  such  engaging  parodies  as  Bro- 
mide and  Sulphite,  found  food  for 
thought.  With  these  as  stepping  stones, 
we  made  our  way  to  other  aspects  of 
human  condition,  and  first  to  the  incom- 
patibilities of  one  order  of  quality  with 
another.  These  are  as  likely  to  be  over- 
looked as  exaggerated.  Versatility  is  it- 
self a  desirable  and  generously  distrib- 
uted quality.  Yet  the  incompatibilities 
are  real  and  to  be  reckoned  with.  They 
bring  no  ready  consolation.  The  deter- 
mining bases  of  quality  seem  so  largely 
dowers  of  birth,  as  to  make  efforts  to  at- 
tain them  proportionately  futile.    Hence, 


CIRCUMSTANCE  147 

incidentally,  the  tribute  to  quality  in  the 
outward  assumption  of  its  manner,  and 
the  confusion  of  sham  and  glitter  and  the 
penetration  thereof  by  the  discerning. 
But  truth  and  consolation  come  with  the 
response  that  while  the  sensibilities  de- 
termine our  ability  to  acquire  taste, 
they  do  not  determine  what  manner 
of  taste  we  so  acquire.  Education  and 
the  influence  of  environment  do  not 
lack  for  occupation.  Next  in  our  path 
lay  the  special  avenues  of  capacity,  and 
most  to  be  emphasized,  the  conven- 
tional and  unconventional  drifts  of  en- 
deavor. 1  here  indulged  in  an  inter- 
mezzo, closely  related  to  the  main  motif, 
a  plea  for  a  more  appreciative  rating  of 
the  poietic  temperament,  potent  to  save 
and  redeem  mankind.  And  thus  plead- 
ing— a  plea  that  is  intended  to  haunt 
the  memory  when  all  other  phrases  have 
faded  —  I  found  myself  anticipating  and 
gliding  into  the  theme  of  the  succeeding 
movement,  —  which  is,  that  life  is  charac- 


148     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

ter  in  action :  that  however  moulded  by- 
circumstance,  we  yet  remain  individu- 
ally, and  above  all  in  our  social  solidar- 
ity, master-moulders  of  our  fate. 

Yet  before  yielding  to  the  transition, 
I  claimed  attention  in  behalf  of  certain 
derivative  issues  of  quality,  which  the 
psychology  embodied  in  a  complex  and 
sophisticated  world  interestingly  reflects. 
The  values  of  the  several  qualities,  set  by 
nature  and  enforced  by  nurture,  change 
with  the  favoring  environment.  Sensi- 
bility is  retained,  but  is  so  overlaid  with 
convention,  so  transformed  by  circum- 
stance, so  redirected  by  ideals,  and  so 
reconstructed  by  institutions,  that  the 
earlier  interpretations  require  liberal 
transcription.  The  qualities  are  much  the 
same,  the  modes  of  their  excitation  and 
expression  notably  different.  As  appears 
later,  in  this  combined  natural  and  nur- 
tural  situation,  the  determining  status  of 
one's  quality  is  measured  by  the  af^lia- 
tion  with  the  finer  or  the  coarser,  the  one 


THE  UPPER  RANGES       149 

type  or  the  other  of  a  common  quality, 
and  by  the  sturdiness  of  the  temperament 
to  withstand,  while  yet  it  is  responsive  to 
the  social  sanction.  The  most  decisive 
change  is  the  transformation  of  primitive 
traits  in  the  altered  perspective  of  civili- 
zation, the  overlaying  of  the  fundamen- 
tal impulses  by  an  envelope  of  acquired 
readjustment ;  and  in  this  comprehens- 
ive evolution  the  change  of  emphasis  is 
consistently  upon  the  upper  ranges,  the 
refined  differentia  of  human  qualities. 
Slight  though  these  differences  of  qual- 
ity and  circumstance  are  in  a  generous 
rating  of  values,  they  more  consciously 
affect  preferences  and  careers,  because  it 
is  at  the  level  at  which  they  contribute 
their  influence,  that  the  efficient  life  of  the 
day  is  lived. 

Equally  though  differently  pertinent  is 
the  more  directive  influence  of  quality  or 
environment  in  cultural  evolution,  as  in 
turn  each  becomes  cause  and  effect ;  as 
each  furnishes  the  favoring  medium  for 


I50    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

the  other.  The  complexity  of  the  advance 
suggests  graphically  an  ascending  spiral, 
in  following  which  the  sense  of  direction 
is  easily  confused.  Concrete  illustrations 
prove  helpful ;  and  such  varied  interests 
of  the  day  and  hour  as  push  and  adver- 
tising, supply  and  demand,  vocations  and 
the  esprit  of  communities  and  peoples, 
the  responsiveness  of  the  qualities  of 
women  to  the  ideals  of  men,  were  drawn 
upon  with  impressionistic  effect.  A  more 
serious  refrain  was  added,  pointing  the 
moral  of  responsibility  to  the  practical 
adornments  of  the  tale, —  then  developed 
to  meet  its  consummating  phase. 

The  completing  phase  of  the  movement 
opened  upon  the  sea  of  circumstance, 
with  the  human  qualities  in  their  frail 
bark  tossing  upon  it.  The  ports  however 
are  of  human  construction  and  location  ; 
and  we  reach  them  through  ideals.  All 
depends  upon  the  captain's  sagacity  and 
nobility  of  purpose  as  well  as  upon  his 
practical    seamanship.    Once    more   we 


CONVENTION  151 

lean  upon  the  poietic  qualities  of  the 
leaders  of  men.  Convention  persists  as 
a  fundamental  limitation,  in  its  embodi- 
ment in  institutions  at  once  a  force  to  be 
utilized  and  to  be  resisted.  Pilotage, 
though  true  to  the  compass,  becomes  an 
art  of  compromise.  The  captain  yields  to 
wind  and  weather  if  need  be,  yet  is  ever 
alert  to  make  these  serve  his  charted 
purpose.  He  does  not  drift,  nor  tack  to 
every  political  gust ;  he  has  a  plan,  a  pur- 
pose, and  follows  it ;  he  is  ready  to  face 
opposition,  to  quell  mutiny  if  he  must 
His  captaincy  is  the  warrant  for  the  quali- 
ties of  leadership. 

Nearing  shore  in  quieter  waters,  we 
surveyed  the  human  fleet  contemplatively 
riding  at  anchor,  and  considered  what 
forces  make  the  captains  of  men.  Human 
responsibility  is  great,  and  in  the  manner 
of  its  assumption  are  tested  the  qualities 
of  nations.  We  may  shirk  it  by  ascribing, 
in  ignorance  or  fatalism,  our  own  defi- 
ciencies to  human  nature.  We  may  show 


152    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

ourselves  unworthy  of  it  by  making  an 
idol  of  success  erected  upon  a  pedestal 
of  convention,  and  renounce  the  specifi- 
cally human  privilege  of  following  the 
higher  or  the  lower  illumination,  the 
deeper  and  larger  experience  or  the  nar- 
rower expediency ;  and  by  such  following 
give  effective  sanction  to  the  worthier  or 
the  less  worthy  qualities  of  men. 


XIII 

It  may  appear  that  the  promise  to 
carry  the  purpose  of  this  essay  domi- 
nantly  in  the  practical  vein  has  been  too 
Hghtly  or  too  Hberally  construed.  If  the 
argument  of  the  work  holds  good,  such 
is  not  the  case.  The  bonds  that  join  the- 
ory and  practice  are  subject  to  the  com- 
plications of  the  higher  quality.  As  we 
leave  the  simpler  situations,  finer  distinc- 
tions grow  in  significance.  Longer-range 
skirmishes  in  the  territory  of  theory  are 
necessary  to  safeguard  the  advances  of 
practice.  Yet  with  the  outlook  secured, 
reconnoitring  for  occupation  becomes  a 
practical  concern.  It  is  peculiarly  appro- 
priate as  the  concluding  procedure. 

Leadership  and  a  following  are  indis- 
pensable to  practical  steps,  as  likewise 
they  have  been  found  characteristic  of 


154    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

the  two  divergent  orders  of  human  qual- 
ity. The  practical  problems  of  society- 
radiate  from  the  central  purpose  of  hu- 
man institutions,  to  secure  the  fairest 
favor  for  the  worthiest  qualities  of  men. 
In  whatever  measure  or  manner  we  fail 
to  rest  leadership  with  the  more  worthily 
responsible,  we  place  it  in  the  hands  of 
the  less  responsible.  At  bottom  there  is 
no  scrupled  objection  —  only  a  Philistine 
protest  —  against  privileged  classes.  We 
may  confidently  trust  the  democratic  sen- 
timent of  Lowell  that  "  the  highest  privi- 
lege to  which  the  majority  of  mankind 
can  aspire,  is  that  of  being  governed  by 
those  wiser  than  they."  It  is  the  false 
warrant  of  privilege  that  has  aroused  the 
indignations  and  the  revolutions  of  re- 
formers and  their  following.  The  privi- 
leges which  wise  provisions  aim  to  con- 
fer upon  men  of  wisdom,  if  thwarted  in 
purpose,  will  inevitably  be  assumed  by 
men  of  another  stamp.  Thus  every  soci- 
ety finds  its  equation  in  the  values  it 


COMPLACENT  DEMOCRACY    155 

assigns  to  the  factors  whose  interactions 
have  been  surveyed  ;  and  expresses  the 
result  practically  in  its  selection  of  lead- 
ers of  men. 

The  consequences  of  the  complex  pre- 
ferences thus  exercised,  though  seemingly 
remote,  are  practical,  even  intimately  so. 
Every  society  has  its  prejudices  and  its 
predilections.  They  are  by  no  means 
unreasonable,  and  for  the  most  part  are 
consistently  related  to  the  more  con- 
sciously entertained  principles  of  its 
creeds  and  platforms.  Certain  idols  of 
the  times  have  supplied  motives  to  the 
interludes  of  protest  and  appeal,  which 
fell  to  a  writer's  privilege.  They  served 
as  illustrations  to  adorn  the  tale.  They 
are  of  yet  greater  service  in  pointing  a 
moral. 

Among  the  unexpected  side-issues  of 
democracy  is  complacency,  on  the  whole 
an  optimistically  tempered,  self-satisfied 
good-will,  that  goes  far  to  justify  itself 
by  its  solvent  virtues.    Its  practical  dis- 


156    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

service  lies  in  its  undue  tolerance  of  dis- 
sent, its  too  slighting  regard  for  the  re- 
former's part.  It  is  true  that  the  by  no 
means  gentle  art  of  "muck-raking"  has 
sprung  quickly  into  favor ;  but  with  a 
more  habitual,  critical  outlook  and  a  less 
complacent  tolerance  of  minor  infringe- 
ments, there  would  have  been  less  occa- 
sion for  this  unsavory  occupation.  The 
refusal  of  the  remedies  offered  by  the 
small  voice  of  sensibility  has  compelled 
resort  to  a  harsh-toned  sensationalism. 
In  such  an  intellectual  climate  the  re- 
former's lot  is  not  a  happy  one.  Pecu- 
liarly timely  protests  may  chance  to  be 
well  received  ;  but  the  approval  that  goes 
out  to  the  stickler  for  his  rights  —  like 
the  virtuous  glow  of  duty  nobly  done 
that  rewards  the  writers  of  protesting  let- 
ters to  the  "  London  Times" — is  decid- 
edly paled  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
"  Life  is  short ;  missionaries  do  not  pass 
for  a  very  agreeable  class,  nor  martyrs 
for  a  verv  sensible  class,"  as  Lord  Mor- 


IMPATIENCE  WITH  REFORM   157 

ley  finds  occasion  to  remark.  To  be- 
come a  "kicker"  or  a  "knocker"  is  to 
join  the  most  unpopular  of  American  or- 
ders. Quite  apart  from  the  silly  boasting, 
and  the  ostrich-like  disregard  of  danger 
and  obstacles,  and  the  Boeotian  spread- 
eagleism  that  all  recognize  no  wrong,  and 
jointly  warrant  the  occasional  caricatures 
of  our  true  qualities  in  foreign  estima- 
tion, there  is  displayed  on  the  part  of 
those  unaffected  by  these  obvious  foibles, 
a  very  unfair  suspicion  of  the  reformer ; 
and  this  suspicion  shelters  a  menace  to 
the  appreciation  of  quality.  It  is  sup- 
ported by  an  impatience  that  objects  to 
stopping  the  machinery,  even  to  oil  it 
or  to  correct  a  defect.  The  infatuation 
of  locomotion,  of  keeping  a-going,  dis- 
tracts attention  from  the  direction  of 
movement.  There  is  a  too  ready  sus- 
picion that  the  objector  or  would-be  re- 
former is  suffering  from  a  soured  dispo- 
sition or  is  nursing  a  personal  "grouch." 
There  is  an  extreme  reluctance  to  recog- 


158    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

nize  in  the  critical  insight  or  in  the  re- 
forming temper  the  quaUties  desired  in 
our  leaders.  "  The  scold,"  as  has  been 
neatly  said,  "at  his  princeliest  is  but  a 
poor  leader  ;  he  rebukes  with  a  trumpet, 
he  leads  with  a  penny  whistle."  Yet  the 
clarion  call,  even  though  it  arouse  men 
to  thought  and  not  to  action,  is  at  times 
the  most  indispensable  of  alarums  ;  and 
the  cry  in  the  wilderness  in  time  pene- 
trates to  the  crowded  haunts  of  men. 
Doubtless  for  our  greater  happiness 
though  not  greater  security,  we  shall 
avoid  the  Cassandras  of  either  sex  ;  but 
the  wiser  of  their  generation  have  given 
heed,  commonly  with  impatience  over- 
come, to  the  poietic  counsels  however 
ominous,  from  Jeremiah  to  Carlyle. 

An  essay  in  the  appreciation  of  quality 
may  indicate  the  practical  incorporation 
of  its  principles  in  a  plea  for  the  high 
valuation  of  individuality,  for  a  like  en- 
couragement of  the  social  sentiment  that 
makes  for  independence  of  opinion,  for 


INDIVIDUALITY  159 

freedom  in  its  expression.  The  same  at- 
titude eases  the  path  of  worthy  reform, 
is  well-disposed  to  minorities.  The  fun- 
damental privileges  of  free  speech  and 
free  thought,  and  the  toleration  of  beliefs 
and  practices  wherein  men  most  naturally 
differ,  are  secure.  But  it  is  not  at  this 
level  that  timely  reforms  are  propagated. 
The  wrongs  of  society  have  moved  up- 
ward with  the  elevation  of  its  secured 
rights.  The  atmosphere  that  surrounds 
the  militant  or  insurgent  individualist  is 
quite  inhospitable  enough  to  make  him 
feel  unwelcome  ;  and  what  is  more  perti- 
nent, it  is  quite  sufficiently  austere  to 
turn  those  inclined  to  his  standards  away 
from  the  narrow  rougher  paths  and  into 
the  smoothly  paved  highways.  By  this 
attitude  a  general  intellectual  habit  of 
originality  and  independence  is  more 
tolerated  than  cherished  ;  and  thereby  is 
society  the  loser  by  a  relative  loss  of  the 
uncultivated  possibilities  of  the  poietic 
men. 


i6o    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

This  loss  is  as  difficult  to  demon- 
strate as  is  the  saving  power  of  the  patron 
saints  of  seamen.  "  Where  are  the  votive 
ships  of  those  who  went  down  at  sea  ?  " 
the  skeptic  asks,  when  the  models  of 
vessels  rescued  by  saintly  protection  are 
displayed,  suspended  from  the  rafters  of 
the  church.  "  Where  are  your  mute,  in- 
glorious Miltons  ? ' '  Assuredly  their  silence 
and  lack  of  fame  effectively  obscure  them. 
None  the  less  I  have  faith  in  their  exist- 
ence, at  all  events  in  their  potentiality. 
Social  encouragement  and  the  favor  of 
appreciation  may  loosen  the  vocal  chords 
as  well  as  the  heart-strings ;  and  the 
glory  that  comes  only  after  the  unrecog- 
nized singer's  voice  is  hushed,  is  too 
common  an  incident  to  be  without  sig- 
nificance. The  theory  of  the  "  mute,  in- 
glorious Miltons"  is  rich  in  speculative 
suggestion.  Are  comparable  generations 
and  peoples  equally  productive  of  great 
men  ?  Do  occasions  breed  them  or  find 
them  ?  Is  the  power  of  the  social  environ- 


MUTE  INGLORIOUS  MILTONS  i6i 

ment  to  cultivate  or  neglect  more  potent 
than  that  of  endowment  to  provide  ?  Let 
the  fact  stand  that  the  Athenians  of  Peri- 
cles supported  his  rule,  and  appreciated 
the  dramas  of  vEschylus  and  the  sculp- 
tures of  Phidias,  to  prove  the  glory  of 
that  age.  The  rest  is  too  large  a  question  ; 
yet  the  issue  is  practical ;  and  as  we  fol- 
low the  bent  of  our  presumptions,  we 
shall  be  confident  or  skeptical  of  the  dis- 
covery of  unrecognized  talent/ 

^  Upon  these  issues  Mr.  Benson's  comments  are 
interesting  and  apposite.  "Now  there  are  two  modes 
and  methods  of  being  great;  one  is  by  largeness,  the 
other  by  intensity.  ...  A  great  man  may  be  cast  in 
a  big  magnanimous  mould,  without  any  very  special 
accomplishments  or  abilities;  it  may  be  very  difficult 
to  praise  any  of  his  faculties  very  highly,  but  he  is 
there.  ...  I  do  not,  then,  feel  at  all  sure  that  we  are 
lacking  in  great  men,  though  it  must  be  admitted 
that  we  are  lacking  in  men  whose  supremacy  is  recog- 
nized. .  .  .  What  so  many  people  admire  is  not 
greatness  but  the  realisation  of  greatness  and  its 
tangible  rewards.  The  result  is  that  men  who  show 
any  faculty  for  impressing  the  world  are  exploited 
and  caressed,  are  played  with  as  a  toy  and  as  a  toy 
neglected.  .  .  .  The  human  race  is,  speaking  gener- 
ally, so  anxious  for  any  leading  that  it  can  get,  that 


i62    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

But  the  practical  emphasis  bears  not 
upon  muteness,  —  for  be  it  conceded 
that  genius  will  assert  itself  even  though 
it  cries  not  lustily,  —  but  upon  the  spon- 
taneity of  song ;  upon  the  issue  that  the 
lesser  than  Miltons  deserve  high  consid- 
eration. Reduced  from  exalted  to  more 
ordinary  setting,  the  charge  against  even 
a  mildly  distorted  distribution  of  favor 
remains :  that  it  brings  into  prominence  a 
somewhat  less  worthy,  intrinsically  less 
capable  order  of  men  ;  that  it  favors  the 
less  distinctive  or  less  worthy  qualities 
of  its  best  men.  The  principle  from  which 
issues  this  criticism  may  be  stated  in 
terms  of  individual  as  well  as  of  social 
endeavor.  As  such  it  ofiers  an  ideal  to 
measures  of  self-culture  and  education. 

if  a  man  or  woman  can  persuade  themselves  that 
they  have  a  mission  to  humanity,  and  maintain  a 
pontifical  air,  they  will  generally  be  able  to  attract 
a  band  of  devoted  adherents,  whose  faith,  rising 
superior  to  both  intelligence  and  common-sense,  will 
endorse  almost  any  claim  that  the  prophet  or  proph- 
etess likes  to  advance." 


SECOND-BEST  QUALITIES     163 

For  it  sets  forth  that  the  purpose  of  indi- 
vidual culture  is  to  discover  and  develop 
the  best  qualities  of  one's  endowment ; 
as  it  is  the  purpose  of  society  to  utilize 
and  encourage  the  aristocracy  of  capa- 
city which  it  commands.  Educational 
measures  are  but  means  to  facilitate  this 
end.  By  cooperation  society  and  the  in- 
dividual bring  to  fruitage  the  choicest 
products  of  their  best  exemplars. 

The  loss  that  follows  upon  a  feeble  ap- 
preciation of,  or  a  negligent  interest  in, 
these  influences  may  be  pointedly  if 
crudely  put.  Such  a  tendency  makes  it 
quite  too  easy  to  place  second-rate  men 
in  first-rate  places,  and  to  give  the 
second-best  qualities  of  first-rate  men  a 
more  favorable  field  than  is  provided  for 
their  first-best  qualities.  It  may  be  differ- 
ently put  by  saying  that  in  the  callings 
affected,  it  brings  undue  success  to  quali- 
ties conforming  to  a  "lower-grade  rather 
than  to  the  highest-grade  standards  pre- 
scribed, but  not  always  lived  up  to,  for 


i64    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

such  callings.  It  may  mean  —  let  the  ex- 
amples stand  without  prejudice — that  to 
join  the  select  rank  of  the  most  successful 
merchants,  or  brokers,  or  lawyers,  im- 
plies a  selection  by  dint  of  a  combination 
of  qualities,  some  of  which  might  well 
debar  their  possessor  from  membership 
in  desirable  clubs  frequented  by  their 
somewhat  less  successful  but  more  scru- 
pulously loyal  or  refined  colleagues.  In- 
deed, if  the  esteem  of  qualities  followed 
in  election  to  such  social  privileges  were 
more  largely  considered  in  business  re- 
lations, it  could  hardly  fail  to  afifect  fa- 
vorably the  distribution  of  the  more  not- 
able awards.  This  shifting  of  esteem 
naturally  affects  the  callings  and  men 
most  sensitive  to  social  encouragment, 
most  dependent  upon  the  congeniality 
of  the  atmosphere  ;  by  kinship  of  quality, 
it  affects  conduct  and  ideas  alike.  Men 
of  high  inclination  may  yield  to  impor- 
tunity and  engage  in  morally  question- 
able but  not  socially  disqualifying  trans- 


INTELLECTUAL  CLIMATE     165 

actions.  Men  of  no  less  high  inclination, 
otherwise  directed,  may  yield  to  neces- 
sity or  popularity  by  sacrificing  their 
best  to  their  next-best  impulses.  And 
herein  lies  the  saddest  if  not  most  dis- 
astrous consequence  of  ill-disposed  social 
approbation.  It  leads  to  a  double  mis- 
fortune, from  which  the  Poietics  in  Amer- 
ican society  suffer  more  or  less  acutely 
according  to  their  temperament,  their 
station,  their  fate.  The  one  is  the  expo- 
sure to  an  uncongenial  or  at  least  uncer- 
tain intellectual  climate ;  the  other  is  that 
their  service  is  inevitably  judged  by  un- 
suitable, unsympathetic  standards.  These 
standards  are  derived  from  the  callings 
richly  rewarded  by  the  institutions  of  the 
day,  and  are  applied  in  terms  of  the  qual- 
ities demanded  for  the  lucrative  careers. 
And  thus  does  the  contrast  of  station  per- 
vert the  comparison  of  quality  to  the  dis- 
paragement of  the  one  and  the  glorifica- 
tion of  the  other. 

Concrete  statement  is  again  desirable, 


i66    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

but  inevitably  touches  upon  debatable 
ground.  But  since  I  have  maintained 
that  the  disposition  of  appreciation  in 
the  academic  life  is  peculiarly  significant, 
I  must  not  shrink  from  at  least  stating 
the  dangers  incurred.  They  all  threaten 
to  dull  the  edge  of  high-grade  qualities, 
and  may  be  thus  summarized :  that  the 
obstacles  in  the  academic  career  make  it 
needlessly  uncertain  that  the  fittest  serv- 
ice will  find  fittest  station  or  suitable 
provision  ;  that  second-best  qualities  lead 
to  preferment  more  rapidly  and  more 
regularly  than  first-best  ones ;  that  the 
environment  in  which  academic  men 
are  required  to  labor  is  not  as  stimulat- 
ing as  it  might  well  be ;  that  their  activi- 
ties are  too  much  beset  with  uncongenial 
routine,  too  interferingly  hampered  by 
unappreciative  control.  Here  or  there 
the  charges  may  or  may  not  hold.  Some- 
where the  shoe  fits.  Everywhere  im- 
provement must  seek  the  illumination  of 
guiding  principles. 


ACADEMIC   EVILS  167 

The  remedy  more  sharply  defines  the 
indisposition.  It  is  first  directed  to  the 
most  disturbing  symptoms,  and  suggests 
as  urgent  the  larger  participation  in  the 
making  of  their  own  environment,  on 
the  part  of  those  who  live  in  it  and  by 
it.  It  suggests  yet  more  emphatically 
the  reduction  to  a  minimum  of  adminis- 
trative control  unrelated  to  academic  ef- 
ficiency. It  suggests  most  emphatically 
greater  reserve  in  the  exercise  of  that 
pressure  from  the  outside,  whether  of  the 
official  guardianship  of  public  interests 
or  of  public  sentiment  more  popularly 
voiced,  that  compresses  and  represses 
the  vital  tissues  of  the  academic  organism 
to  a  stunted  and  misshapen  growth.  The 
situation  is  convincing  because  it  shows 
so  clearly  how  seemingly  unlike  imped- 
iments are  of  a  nature  all  compact ;  for 
the  uncertainties  of  academic  fortune, 
the  abuses  of  preferment,  the  languor  of 
the  enviroment,  the  dominance  of  exter- 
nal standards  and  control,  the  dictatorial 


i68    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

assertiveness  of  popular  demands,  are 
alike  direct  issues  of  the  faulty  per- 
spective of  appreciation.  The  ill-adjusted 
camera  is  responsible  for  all  the  faults  of 
the  distorted  picture. 

And  so  once  more  and  finally,  the  reply 
is  available  to  those  who  ask,  not  to 
challenge  but  to  relieve :  What  can  you 
do  about  it?  Rest  a  larger  directive 
authority  in  the  hands  of  poietic  men, 
particularly  in  callings  that  require 
special  qualities  of  appreciation.  The 
"safe"  man  may  be  safer;  the  larger 
prizes  involve  the  larger  risks.  The 
larger  wisdom  determines  when  and  how 
they  shall  be  taken.  Make  more  gener- 
ous allowances  for  the  differences  of 
standards  that  vocations  of  distinctive 
temper  and  service  require  and  develop  ; 
again  especially,  do  not  apply  commer- 
cial standards  to  non-commercial  pur- 
suits. Business  may  be  business ;  but 
there  are  other  interests  that  are  not. 
Deliver  gifted  men  from  the  temptation 


UNSUITABLE  STANDARDS     169 

to  use  their  gifts  cheaply.  The  value  of 
their  talents  depends  appreciably  upon 
the  market  which  your  appreciation  cre- 
ates. Avoid  the  penny-wise  and  pound- 
foolish  expediency  of  permitting  the 
immediate  and  often  shallow  demands  of 
the  following  to  shape  the  policy  of  the 
leaders.  Be  patient  with  genius,  respect- 
ful to  dissent,  responsive  to  reform,  atten- 
tive to  criticism,  grateful  to  leadership, 
considerate  of  principle,  appreciative  of 
quality. 

The  conservation  of  our  intellectual 
resources  must  proceed  upon  the  appre- 
ciation of  their  worth.  Nothing  is  more 
unjust  and  unwise  than  the  appraisal  of 
the  products  of  human  quality  by  unsuit- 
able standards.  The  all-embracing  desid- 
eratum remains,  and  becomes  the  simple 
but  commanding  requirement.  It  is  alike 
the  lowliest  and  the  highest  wisdom,  and 
is  akin  to  the  specialization  approved  by 
nature,  which  secures  for  each  cherished 
growth  the  conditions  best  suited  to  its 


I70    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

nurture.  If  in  difficult  positions  of  honor 
and  trust  we  want  wise  and  conscientious 
men,  we  must  see  to  it  that  these  quaUties 
have  free  play  and  ready  reward  in  the 
manifold  and  minor  relations  of  life.  If 
in  business  competition  we  want  only 
men  of  energy,  shrewdness  and  thrift, 
combined  with  the  ever  commendable 
judgment,  and  care  little  for  the  re- 
straints of  fair  dealing,  humane  treat- 
ment, economic  policy,  or  honest  repre- 
sentation, we  shall  develop  as  successful 
captains  of  industry  the  men  who  in  he- 
roic stature  are  energetic,  shrewd,  and 
thrifty,  as  well  as  more  or  less  relentless, 
tyrannical,  self-seeking,  and  unprincipled. 
If  we  have  a  concern  for  courtesy,  good 
manners,  refinement,  we  shall  accord 
these  graces  some  part  in  the  esteem 
that  leads  to  preferment.  If  we  want 
high-grade  artists  or  musicians,  crafts- 
men or  designers,  statesmen  or  adminis- 
trators, scientists  or  engineers,  spiritual 
leaders  or  educational  experts,  we  must 


UNSUITABLE  STANDARDS     171 

be  willing  to  supply  the  conditions  needed 
to  stimulate  and  perfect  these  several 
pursuits.  If  above  all  we  cherish  the  ele- 
vation of  interest  and  delicacy  of  appli- 
cation that  culture  confers  as  its  distinc- 
tive quality,  we  must  give  first  place  to 
the  intangible  and  subtle,  but  no  less 
real  and  practical  provisions  indispen- 
sable to  the  choicer  consummation. 

Qualities  cost,  and  should  willingly  be 
paid  for.  To  the  practical  vision  it  is 
sufficiently  evident  to  what  extent  one 
virtue  is  obtained  at  the  expense  of  an- 
other. The  situation  involves  the  homely 
lesson  that  we  must  not  ask  to  eat  our 
cake  and  have  it  too,  nor  complain  that 
one  kind  of  sweet  has  not  all  the  plums 
and  flavors  of  another,  nor  that  bread 
for  the  common  pilgrim  is  the  more  sat- 
isfactory stafi  of  life.  Yet  there  is  more 
involved  ;  for  it  is  not  so  simple  a  task  to 
distinguish  between  necessities  and  lux- 
uries and  to  value  each  correctly.  Lux- 
uries in  one  situation  become  necessities 


172    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

in  another.  Liberal  generosity  may  be 
the  truest  economy.  It  is  not  even  good 
poHcy  to  bully  or  sneer  at  such  question- 
able "  poor  relations  "  of  these  influential 
social  forces,  as  indulgences,  hobbies, 
caprices,  or  affectations.  A  congenial  in- 
dulgence of  the  environment  is  a  redeem- 
ing fault.  Yet  at  bottom  the  difficulty  of 
valuation  lies  largely  in  the  partial  but 
real  conflict  between  the  values  set  by 
one  group  of  methods  and  purposes  and 
another,  in  the  common  life  that  envelops 
both.  At  bottom  the  practical  interfer- 
ences with  progress  and  the  dangers  of 
disaster  are  due  to  simple  homely  traits  : 
to  the  lack  of  finer  feeling  that  tolerates 
lower  standards,  overrates  cheap  success, 
toadies  to  the  gallery,  and  gains  glory 
for  the  inglorious.  The  glare  of  a  popu- 
lar success  is  so  regrettably  apt  to  distort 
the  perspective  of  values.  The  critical 
judgment  and  the  loyalty  to  standards 
must  ever  be  the  defenses  of  society  for 
the  saner  adjustment  of  social  rewards. 


BUSINESS  AND  EDUCATION   173 

The  insensibility  to  this  situation  is  as 
baffling  as  stupidity,  and  by  assumption 
of  authority  ten  times  as  disastrous.  If 
hard  work,  long  hours,  attention  to  de- 
tail, reduction  of  wants,  calm  unconcern 
for  remote  consequences,  stern  discipline 
of  dependents,  bring  desired  results  in 
one  business,  why  should  they  not  in 
another  ?  Education  is  unfitting  for  busi- 
ness, says  the  self-made  man  with  marked 
deference  to  his  maker,  quite  oblivious 
that  this  may  be  a  reflection  on  the  char- 
acter of  an  occupation  for  which  educa- 
tion is  a  handicap,  quite  as  well  as  upon 
the  futility  of  the  educative  process  at- 
tempted. Even  a  university,  we  have  re- 
cently been  informed,  is  to  be  judged  as 
a  plant  for  turning  out  at  the  least  cost 
and  waste  a  definite  article  of  public  de- 
mand ;  and  the  message  has  been  enforced 
in  the  same  spirit  that  would  judge  the 
merit  of  artists,  not  by  the  inspiration  and 
skill  of  their  canvases,  but  by  their  inge- 
nuity in  getting  their  effects  with  least  ex- 


174    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

penditure  of  materials,  or  by  their  repu- 
tation in  keeping  their  contracts.  It  is  not 
very  clear  what  reply  the  business  man 
would  make  to  Mr.  Howells,  who  in 
speaking  of  the  poet  says  :  "  From  a  busi- 
ness point  of  view,  he  is  also  an  artist ;  and 
the  very  qualities  that  enable  him  to 
delight  the  public  disable  him  from  de- 
lighting it  uninterruptedly."  But  that  is 
precisely  the  wise  business  point  of  view 
even  as  applied  to  so  uncommercial  a 
product  as  poetry.  If  honesty  is  the  best 
policy  in  business,  the  business  man, 
whether  influenced  by  or  insensitive  to 
other  motives,  endorses  it  for  that  reason 
at  all  events.  If  an  eight-hour  day  brings 
greater  efficiency  in  the  long  run  than 
a  ten-hour  day,  the  business  policy  of 
the  shorter  day  will  carry.  There  is  a  fur- 
ther business  aspect  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple ;  it  is  that  every  worker  works  best 
under  the  conditions  best  adjusted  to  his 
pursuit.  This  is  not  a  truism,  or  it  would 
not  be  so  commonly  disregarded.  It  has  a 


THE  TOP   RANGE  175 

profound  psychological  import.  It  means 
that  every  worker  and  above  all  the 
worker  of  higher  quality  — who  may  al- 
ways be  called  an  artist  —  must  work 
with  something  of  that  spontaneity  and 
loss  of  the  sense  of  a  crowding  purpose, 
that  characterizes  play.  It  is  the  infusion 
of  the  play-interest  that  removes  the 
curse  of  labor.  It  does  so  by  an  appeal 
to  the  freer  play  of  unchained  interests. 
The  higher  callings,  it  has  been  set  forth, 
live  more  and  more  upon  the  upper 
ranges  of  human  quality  ;  for  like  reason, 
every  man  working  upon  his  top  range 
is  potentially  a  man  of  mark.  To  further 
the  stimulation  that  lifts  endeavor  to 
within  sighting  distance  of  the  next 
higher  achievment  is  the  policy  of  wis- 
dom, solvent  in  its  own  right,  but  ready 
to  accept  the  endorsement  of  business  if 
its  credit  is  thereby  assured.  In  reflective 
moments  as  in  self-forgetful  ones,  the 
business  man  becomes  aware  that  he  is 
playing  a  game,  not  doing  chores.  There 


176    THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

is  nothing  sordid  about  money-making 
except  the  sordidness  with  which  much  of 
it  is  made.  It  doubtless  has  readier  affin- 
ity with  low  qualities,  but  has  so  large  a 
clientele  that  it  takes  on  the  manner  of 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  The 
"inspired  millionaire"  is  proposed  by 
Mr.  Gerald  Stanley  Lee  as  the  prototype 
of  the  true  servitor  of  civilization.  The 
game  of  money-making  takes  on  the 
quality  of  the  players.  The  advice  prof- 
fered by  the  plea  in  behalf  of  apprecia- 
tion is  to  play  with  insight  and  an  out- 
look. The  presence  of  the  stakes  adds 
zest  to  the  sport ;  but  it  may  be  played 
with  very  different  stakes  or  without 
them.  It  is  the  small  man  who  plays  for 
points  alone.  Raise  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  this  theorem  to  a  higher  power, 
complicate  it  with  the  larger  values  for 
quality  and  the  smaller  for  quantity  ;  and 
the  principle  gains  in  force.  At  whatever 
cost,  every  calling,  if  worth  its  pursuit, 
is  worth  providing  for.  The  specialization 


THE   POLITICAL  TEMPER     177 

and  complexity  of  these  provisions  are 
inherent  in  our  complexly  specialized 
lives.  The  wisest  policy  will  furnish  them, 
and  proceed  first  and  sympathetically  to 
find  out  what  they  are.  The  unwisest 
policy  is  to  impose  upon  one  order  of 
occupation  the  utterly  unfit  standards  of 
another.  Any  measure  of  domineering 
control  of  the  intellectual  interests  by 
business  standards  is  a  serious  peril.  In 
the  actual  situation  it  is  far  from  being 
an  imaginary  one. 

Every  reasonable  man  will  admit  that 
the  adjustment  to  their  mutual  support 
of  the  divergent  standards  growing  out 
of  the  several  orders  of  human  vocation 
is  among  the  legitimate  arts  of  compro- 
mise. And  here,  once  more,  the  temper 
in  which  it  is  carried  out,  becomes  deci- 
sive. The  service,  in  many  situations,  of 
the  political  temper  and  its  disservice 
in  usurping  powers  in  domains  subject 
to  the  dominion  of  principles,  I  have 
relied  upon  Lord  Morley's  essay  to  make 


178     THE   QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

clear.  The  temperamental  phases  of  the 
two  divergent  tendencies  are  in  a  prac- 
tical discussion  the  most  important.  In 
general,  and  irrespective  almost  of  spe- 
cial issue  and  circumstance,  there  is  dis- 
tinguishable a  general  bias  towards  a 
hand-to-mouth,  temporizing,  political 
mode  of  handling  questions,  impatient 
of  delay,  elated  with  bustle,  indifferent 
to  finer  issues,  not  over-sensitive  to  moral 
restraint  and  logical  caution ;  and  op- 
posed thereto,  a  loyalty  to  reasoned 
purpose,  to  sensitive  conviction,  to  the 
commanding  imperative  of  right  and 
wise  ideals.  The  contrast  weakens  in  less 
pronounced  personalities,  with  elements 
of  both  allegiances.  Either  may  combine 
with  a  temperamental  quality,  near  of 
kin  :  that  of  the  analytic  temper,  the  issue 
of  schooling  and  logical  bent ;  or  of  the 
impressionistic  temper,  that  finds  its 
compass  in  impulse  and  insight.  As  met 
with  in  the  walks  of  life,  these  tempera- 
mental divergences  illustrate  how  incom- 


DIVERGENT  TENDENCIES     179 

patibilities  may  yet  associate  by  sympa- 
thy of  purpose.  In  considering  the  uncer- 
tainty of  relation  between  inclination  and 
achievement,  a  contemporary  observer 
announces  that  some  men  have  morals 
and  others  principles.  The  simpler  situa- 
tions of  life  doubtless  yield  a  prompter 
and  a  truer  solution  in  the  rectitude  of 
the  habits,  —  the  issues  of  sensibility,  — 
of  "  happy  instructive  choice  and  whole- 
some sentiment,"  as  Professor  Royce  calls 
them.  The  complexities  of  intellectual 
interests  and  social  institutions  compel 
reasoned  analysis,  notably  on  the  part  of 
those  who  would  lead  or  influence.  The 
consoling  consideration  is  that  the  affilia- 
tion of  purpose,  like  the  underlying  sen- 
sibilities, is  capable  to  join  morals  and 
principles  in  a  mutual  efficiency.  The 
large-minded  politician  and  the  large- 
minded  philosopher  will  understand  one 
another  and  find  common  arts  of  compro- 
mise, despite  difTerences  of  opinion,  far 
more  readily  and  worthily  than  represent- 


i8o    THE  QUALITIES  OF  MEN 

atives  of  these  interests  with  narrow  out- 
look and  more  convergent  views.  On  the 
larger  ground  of  appreciation,  those  ex- 
pert in  determining  the  social  encourage- 
ments most  stimulating  to  the  higher 
ranges  of  human  quality,  and  those  in- 
fluential in  promoting  measures  to  se- 
cure them,  may  meet  in  sympathy  of 
purpose,  with  the  promise  of  the  largest 
service  to  their  common  loyalty. 

I  began  this  essay  by  suggesting  the 
difficulties  as  well  as  the  grounds  of  a 
personal  optimism.  I  conclude  it  by  add- 
ing the  assurances  thereof.  It  has  been 
duly  set  forth  that  the  qualities  of  men  are 
intimately  conditioned  by  the  organically 
ordained  institutions  of  human  nature ; 
that  these  must  be  relied  upon  to  furnish 
the  motive  force  and  the  skill  for  all  en- 
deavors set  by  ideals  of  human  desire. 
Viewed  as  a  limitation,  it  would  appear 
that  human  nature  cannot  change ;  it 
has  usually  been  so  construed  and  mis- 


ASSURANCES  OF  OPTIMISM    i8i 

construed.  Viewed  as  a  fundamental  re- 
source, the  expansion  of  qualities  nat- 
ural to  men  furnishes  the  commanding 
basis  of  faith  in  the  progressive  future 
of  humanity.  It  is  not  so  much  that  hu- 
man nature  is  the  one  condition  that  we 
cannot  change  —  which  is  true  with  the 
truth  of  the  part ;  but  that  the  change- 
ability of  human  nature  is  all  that  we 
have  to  work  upon  —  which  is  the  rest 
of  the  truth.  Both  for  the  guidance  of 
practice  and  the  support  of  optimism 
the  advantage  is  with  the  latter.  I  cited 
Mr.  Kipling  on  his  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
as  one  skeptical  of  the  ability  of  even  a 
high-grade  personality  to  grow  beyond 
the  limits  of  its  inheritance.  Let  me  cite 
Professor  James  on  our  side,  for  an  op- 
posite conviction.  "  Though  it  is  no 
small  thing  to  inoculate  seventy  millions 
of  people  with  new  standards,  yet,  if  there 
is  to  be  any  relief,  that  will  have  to  be 
done.  We  must  change  ourselves  from 
a  race  that  admires  jerk  and  snap  for 


i82     THE  QUALITIES   OF   MEN 

their  own  sakes,  and  looks  down  upon 
low  voices  and  quiet  ways  as  dull,  to  one 
that,  on  the  contrary,  has  calm  for  its 
ideal,  and  for  their  own  sakes  loves  har- 
mony, dignity,  and  ease."  As  we  are 
impressed  by  the  limitations  of  nature, 
or  by  the  possibilities  of  nurture  under  the 
guidance  of  ideals,  we  shall  place  our  al- 
legiances and  shape  our  endeavors.  The 
variability  of  human  nature  by  gift  of 
endowment  and  by  stress  of  circumstance 
as  well  as  by  the  stimulus  of  ideals,  re- 
mains the  consistent  prop  to  optimism. 
With  wholly  altered  and  more  grateful 
application,  we  may  repeat  Goneril's  ex- 
clamation :  "  O,  the  difference  of  man 
and  man ! " 

Large  subjects,  like  small  countries, 
have  an  advantage  for  the  observant 
tourist.  He  obtains  a  variety  of  aspects 
of  both  nature  and  man,  and  retains  the 
sense  of  homogeneity  that  makes  for  a 
singleness  of  impression.  By  successive 
excursions  to  outlying   boundaries,    he 


CONCLUSION  183 

appreciates  without  undue  effort  the  traits 
that  make  all  mankind  kin,  and  the  va- 
rieties of  nature  that  make  possible  alike 
misunderstanding  and  the  progress  to- 
wards better  things.  He  sees  much  or 
little,  the  vital  things  or  the  superficial, 
according  to  the  depth  and  range  of  his 
vision.  If  of  large  mind  and  wholesome 
sympathies,  his  survey  not  only  brings 
home  the  time-tested  dictum  of  the  Ro- 
man dramatist,  that  in  the  country  of  the 
humanities  no  true  man  is  a  foreigner,  but 
supplements  it  with  the  increasing  con- 
viction that  it  is  the  deeper  appreciation 
of  human  quality  and  its  vicissitudes 
that  makes  the  best  of  human  achieve- 
ments humane. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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